Kate's Diner
by Kasamyra
Summary: The night that Sweets decided not to move in with Daisy, he happened to wander into Kate's Diner. Instead of letting him wallow in sadness, Kate takes it upon herself to cheer him up by forcing him to go out in public and have fun. A series of events leads to Kate being a suspect in a murder, getting locked in the lab with a strain of the Marburg Virus, and falling in love.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Got a new one for ya, Doc." The voice pulled my attention back to the present. I didn't usually zone out so much at work, but I had been given so much to think about this morning, and my attention had been divided all day. I glanced toward the waitress, Kathy, who had interrupted my thinking.

"Stop calling me that Kath," I said, getting to my feet with a sigh. She grinned at me and nodded her head toward the bar section of the restaurant. I looked over, seeing immediately why she wanted me to take care of the new customer.

The restaurant, which had been named Kate's by my parents before they had passed away, was mine now, and I hardly ever left the building anymore. My parents had been quite wealthy, owning five restaurants and a handful of apartment buildings around town. When they had died, leaving me everything, I had sold the other four restaurants. I had kept our house, though I hardly ever went there anymore, preferring to live in one of the apartments on top of the restaurant, and even though I didn't need to work anymore, I did it anyway, because I enjoyed it.

Most of the staff had been working here for years, and they all liked me, for the most part, so it was a nice environment to be in. And the customers loved me. It was always busiest when I was there, and I always got nice tips, which meant that the others working with me liked to have me there too, since I usually split the tips between them, as I didn't need the money. It was easy to make people like me, not that I'm trying to sound conceited or anything. I was just very good with people.

I was born with an eidetic memory. It's sort of like a photographic memory, but I don't only remember images, I remember sounds and feeling too. I never forget anything. It made school and university very easy, and it let me obtain three doctorates in the time it takes most people to achieve one. I had been halfway done with my fourth doctorate when my parents had passed away and I had lost interest in school. The waitresses here liked to call me 'Doc' as a way of making fun of me, but it was in a loving way most of the time. Getting degrees in English, Psychology, and Philosophy gave me an insight to most people's lives and it let my brain make jumps to assume things about people. I was mostly right. My fourth doctorate would have been in Engineering, which was my way of branching out from what I knew absolutely to something I knew only a little, and I had enjoyed it for a while, but I felt closer to my parents working here, and I really did enjoy waitressing. Or maybe I just enjoyed taking care of people.

The customers liked me because I never forgot their names or orders, and some of them liked to talk to me because I was cheaper than a psychologist and I gave sound advice. And sometimes people just liked to have someone to talk to in general, like a friend.

So because I was good at getting people to talk to me, the other waitresses always directed the sad looking people to me. Usually they came specifically to talk to me as most of our customers were regulars, but once in a while we would get a new person, like today.

"He ordered coffee, but I figured I'd leave it to you," Kathy continued in a low voice, nodding to the counter again. I looked him over, taking in his slouched frame, downcast eyes, and the way he ran his hands through his hair every once in a while. He was sad, obviously, but also frustrated, and, judging by the way his eyes flicked to the windows, always in the same direction, maybe a little regretful of something he had done recently. I nodded absently to Kathy and took a moment to make sure my unruly red curls were back in their proper place as they had a habit of escaping, then went to poor him a coffee. I guessed he was having girl problems, since he seemed to be young, maybe a year or so younger then I was, and most boys his age would probably only be that upset over a recent breakup.

"Hey," I said, setting the cup down in front of him and leaning against the register counter across from him. "Girl troubles?"

He glanced up when I spoke and I couldn't help but think that he sort of looked like a sad puppy.

"Yeah, sort of," he said, looking back down.

"Recent breakup?" I guessed, my voice soothing. The place was close to empty now, only three other tables, so I knew I wouldn't be needed for anything. I walked around the counter and took a seat next to him. "Don't worry, it'll get better."

"Yeah, very recent," he said softly, looking into his coffee, then he frowned and looked up. "Do I know you?"

"Nope," I said, grinning. I had turned on my stool so that I leaned back against the counter, facing toward the door. "I'm just good at reading people."

"Oh," he said, not interested enough to stay away from his wallowing for long.

"Want to talk about it?" I asked, watching his face from the corner of my eye.

"I don't even know you," he said, frowning again. I smiled but didn't look towards him.

"Sometimes strangers are the best people to talk to about your problems because we are distanced from the event and can look at it objectively," I said, my eyes following two people walking by the front of the restaurant. It wasn't exactly late, only around eight or so, but the sun had gone down so there were less people out than usual. "Besides, you came here alone instead of going to a friend, which means you don't want to talk to someone you know and the fact that you haven't asked me to leave yet tells me that you don't actually want to be alone."

"You're right," he said after a few seconds, then he sighed. "I guess you learn a lot about people working in a customer service job." I smiled but let him change the subject. He would get around to why he was upset sooner or later.

"Yes, I do," I said, nodding. "And it helps that I studied people in school too."

"Where at?" He asked, sipping his coffee. He seemed to be relaxing a little now, focusing on our conversation instead of his own feelings, which was good, since he looked less sad.

"Harvard," I said, grinning at his slightly surprised look. "I know, how posh of me." He snorted in laughter at that.

"You went to Harvard but you work here?" He asked, raising an eyebrow in question. I shrugged, used to getting those types of comments.

"I like it here," I replied, looking around the building. "Waitressing has always been what I enjoyed doing. School was just for fun."

"You went to Harvard for fun?" He asked, shaking his head a little at the idea. I shrugged again.

"I probably would still be there but… I was needed here," I smiled a little. It had been almost a full year since I had left school. It was a little odd, after nine years of solid classes and tests and studying, to come back here and have my days filled with orders, stocking, and cooking instead.

"Let me guess," he said, and I turned to him with an eyebrow raised this time. "Someone in your family is sick, or passed away, and you came back to help out and now you feel as though you will be abandoning them if you return to school?"

"Half right," I said, grinning. "Did you major in Psychology?"

"At the University of Pennsylvania," he said, nodding.

"It's a very interesting subject," I agreed, turning back to face the door. "What brought you to DC?"

"After I got my doctorates in Psychology I was recruited to the FBI as a consultant," he said.

"Wow, that must be an exciting job," I said, grinning. "Do they let you carry a gun and catch bad guys or do you have to stay in the office?"

"I get to chase bad guys, sometimes," he said, grinning, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for bringing out a smile at last.

"So tell me about this girl," I said after a couple seconds of silence.

"Her name is Daisy," he began with a sigh. "We were going to move in together today but… she thought that meant a lot more than I did."

"Meant more like marriage?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I thought moving in was just moving in, but she thought it meant we were going to get married and have kids and stuff," he said, shaking his head a little. "I thought it would be best to call it off now instead of letting her believe that any longer, so I gave her the apartment."

"Well that was nice of you," I said, turning back towards the now completely dark windows. The streetlights lit just enough of the street to see the few people still out walking.

"Not really, I mean, I wasn't going to break up with her and kick her out," he said.

"No, I meant the not leading her on part," I said. "Not a lot of people think far enough ahead in relationships to anticipate problems like that. And even fewer people are willing to point it out once they realize it."

"I guess," he mumbled, and we were silent for another few seconds. I got up to refill his nearly empty coffee cup, and when I came back I set a plain metal key next to it. He looked up questioningly.

"If you go left out these doors and take the first staircase up along this building to the third floor, number 302 is empty, you can stay there till you find somewhere else to live, free of charge," I said, resisting a smile at his look, which plainly said he thought I was crazy.

"Um, what?" He asked, his voice confused.

"You just gave your apartment to your girlfriend right?" He nodded. "Which means you don't have a place to live. You can stay there. It's fully furnished and no one else is living there right now. It's not a very big place, but it's pretty nice."

"I'm sorry," he began, his voice a little slow as though he was still not understanding. "You're a waitress who just gives random strangers access to an apartment for no reason?"

"Oh, that's right. My name is Kate. Kaitlin James. I own this building, and the restaurant. What's your name?" I asked, smiling now.

"Lance Sweets," he replied, his voice still distracted.

"Well there you go, now we aren't strangers," I said, grinning. "And its not for no reason, you need a place to stay and I happen to have one. That's a good enough reason to give you a key."

"Do you give everyone who comes in here an apartment for free?" Lance asked, shaking his head as though trying to understand something else now.

"Nope, you would be the first," I said, shrugging. "Well actually, I did give one of the waitresses a place last year for a few weeks when her house was being fumigated."

"You don't make any sense," he said at last. "You don't know anything about me."

"Sure I do," I said, raising an eyebrow. "You have a doctorates in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, which means you are smart and you have a good understanding of people. You work for the FBI, which means you probably aren't a criminal or a murderer. You are considering taking my apartment, which I can tell because you haven't given the key back yet," I nodded to his hand where he had been idly playing with the key. "Which means you either don't have any family nearby or you don't get along with your family. I'm guessing the former since you seem to be mild tempered and calmer people usually get along better with their families. "You don't seem to have a defensive personality, which tells me you are probably an only child, or there is a large age gap between you and the next child. You're left handed, you aren't vindictive or mean, and you like coffee." I paused to draw a breath, but I didn't really have anything else to add so I let it out again. "Are you hungry?" I asked instead. "We have a really good chicken burger."

"Um, what?" He asked for the second time, and I grinned. "Yeah actually, I am hungry. You got all of that from talking to me for ten minutes?"

"You've been here for half an hour, Hun," I said, chuckling. "But yes, I said I was good at reading people. I also have a doctorate in Psychology." I wrote a note on my order pad and put it on the wheel for the cooks to get, then turned back to him as a middle aged man came in and sat at the other end of the counter.

"So, you want the apartment?" I asked, pulling out another coffee cup to fill for the man.

"Uh, yeah, I guess. But I still don't understand why you would offer that to someone you don't know," he said, frowning. "People aren't nice unless it prophets them."

"Wrong," I said, "But hold that thought." I walked to the other end of the bar with a smile.

"Hi Mr. Johnson," I said, grinning at the man. "How's your daughter? Did she have that baby yet? I know her due date was yesterday."

"Hey Katie," he said, smiling as he accepted the cup. "The baby hasn't come yet, but Ashley's in the hospital now, waiting."

"I bet she's excited," I said, smiling. "You said they think it's a boy right? She's going to have her hands full when he comes along."

"No kidding," Mr. Johnson said, grinning.

"I'll expect you to bring her and the baby in sometime so I can finally meet them," I said. "You want your usual today? We just got our shake machine fixed."

"You are the best, Katie," he said, chuckling as I scribbled his usual order out on my order book for the cook. It only took me a few minutes to make his shake, but by the time I had given it to him, the chicken burger was done for Lance, so I took it and went back to him.

"Do you think that everything happens for a reason?" I asked, sliding the plate in front of him and continuing our previous conversation. He looked up from his phone and frowned in thought. "Not in a religious way or anything, just that there are things that happen, and then something else happens that is completely unconnected to the first thing but somehow, that second thing makes the first thing make sense?"

"I guess," he said. "Like coincidence."

"Sort of," I said, shrugging. "I think that everything happens for a reason, and sometimes we don't figure out that reason. But sometimes we do. The person who lived in 302 moved out two weeks ago with no warning to go live with her family in Florida. Then you come in here, even though you haven't been here before and don't know anyone here, and you need a place to live. Things like that happen to me all the time, and I usually don't question it."

"I see," he said, nodding as he absently ate a fry. I smiled and went back to talk to Mr. Johnson for a few minutes to let Lance think over what I had said. Two more tables came in, and all three of the previously occupied tables left before I went back over to him.

"There aren't enough nice people in the world," I said, startling him a little. "I like to be nice because other people are more likely to do nice things if someone is nice to them first." He nodded, sipping his coffee, which was probably cold by now, but as he had finished eating I didn't refill it. "So you want the apartment?"

"I'll pay rent though," he said, nodding. I grinned.

"Pay next month if you want to stay that long," I said, shrugging. "I'm not making you pay for an apartment you don't like, and it's not like I need it."

"Thank you," he said, sighing.

"Just do me a favor and don't look so sad," I said, grinning again as I took his plate and cup. He was gone before I came back from dropping them off in the sink, money for the meal left in his place.

* * *

I didn't make it upstairs until close to one in the morning. Though the restaurant was open 24 hours a day, I rarely stayed that late, and business after midnight was mostly college kids and drunk people, which the people who worked night shift didn't mind, but I preferred middle aged and elderly, sober customers. My apartment was the only occupied one on the second floor, since most people didn't want to live right above an all night restaurant, but it was large since this floor was only split into two apartments, where the third and fourth floors were split into four. Mine was sparsely furnished since I told myself that I still lived at my parents' house. If I moved in here completely it would be like leaving them again. Besides, I only slept here, nothing else really, so it wasn't like I needed a TV. Or a couch. The second bedroom was filled with extra stock for the restaurant, like plates, hand soap, frying pans, and plastic containers. Pretty much everything downstairs had a backup here, which probably went against the health code, but it was better than crowding the back with extra things.

I stared around at the empty place. Maybe I should get a cat to keep here, then it wouldn't feel so cold when I came in. The windows were all open a few inches, letting the warm air of the night in, but it was just cold in a non-physical way. Maybe I should just move some things from the house over. I really should sell the house. Someone should be living in it. Maybe a new family with kids and a dog like I'd had when I was little.

I sighed and shook my head, then went to get ready for bed. The house was something I could think about later.

* * *

I didn't see Lance again until three days later when he came into the restaurant for breakfast, looking sadder than ever. It was busy, nearly every table was full, but there were three other waitresses running around too, and the four tables in my section were taken care of for now. I brought him a coffee before he could sit down, and looked him over. He was wearing a suit this time, which I assumed meant he was going to work. He mumbled thanks without looking up, and I sighed.

"Let me guess, you saw Daisy yesterday," I said, leaning against the counter across from him.

"This morning," he said, frowning. "To get my things for work."

"You broke up with her you know," I said, and he scowled up at me for a moment. I shrugged. "Just saying," I said, holding my hands up in submission.

"Thanks," he said sarcastically. "You're a huge help."

"I know," I said brightly, ignoring his tone. "What I meant was, you both have a right to be sad for a while, but you can't focus on that or it'll start seeping into all the other parts of your life too. Like work. Bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, wheat toast?"

"Uh, sure," he said, offhandedly. He didn't look like he had eaten much in the last few days, and he probably would have stuck with just coffee if I hadn't slipped it in when he was distracted.

"So how do you like the apartment?" I asked, changing the subject.

"That couch is the most comfortable one I've ever sat on," he said, perking up a little.

"I know," I said, smiling. "I got it from an estate sale two years ago. The woman said it was brand new. Is the place big enough for you?"

"It's bigger than you made it out to be. It's actually a good size I think," he said, and I took the opportunity to jot down his breakfast order and put it back for the cooks.

"It's smaller than mine is, so I always just think of it as small," I said, shrugging.

"You live and work here?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Saves on travel costs," I said, smiling. "I don't actually live here, I just have an apartment here for when I stay late at work. My parent's have a house but it's like ten miles from here so it's easier to just stay here."

"And your parents don't mind?" He asked, sipping his coffee.

"They passed away last year," I said, shrugging. "I don't want to get rid of the house, but I don't want to live there either."

"Oh, I understand," he said, and I smiled. He probably did understand, if not from experience then from studying people. I cleared away the dishes from a table and wiped it down to reset it, then brought him his food.

"If there is anything wrong with the apartment let me know, I'm in 201 and I'm always either here or there," I said, trying to keep him talking. If he left for work in a good mood it would mean he had spent that much less time thinking about Daisy. "I don't really have much of a life."

"I usually don't either," he said, giving a half smile. "Not outside work anyway."

"Don't you have any friends?" I asked, my voice soft so it didn't sound like a jab at him.

"A few, but mostly just people I work with," he said, shrugging.

"I'm that way too," I said, smiling. "You should go out for drinks with them tonight."

"What? Why?" He asked, frowning.

"For fun," I said, rolling my eyes. "You can't just stay cooped up in your apartment. You have to socialize. Meet new people. And here doesn't count."

"You literally just said that you don't have friends outside of work and you are always here or at home," he said, quoting my words back to me.

"Yeah, well, I'm not sad," I said, shrugging. He might have responded to that, but his phone rang. I went back to take care of my other tables while he talked.

"Okay, fine, I'll be there in ten minutes," I heard him say as I came back. He had eaten less than half of his food.

"Fifteen minutes," I said loud enough that whoever he was talking to would probably hear. He scowled at me, while the person on the phone talked to him again and I pointed at his food. "You need to eat at least some of that. It's a waste to throw it out." He rolled his eyes but repeated the extended time into the phone and hung up.

"I don't need a mother you know," he said, but he stayed seated and took another bite.

"I'm sure you are all grown up and can take care of yourself and all that jazz, but you still need to eat and it looks like you will wither away if you skip another meal," I said, rolling my eyes at him. He chuckled and continued to eat quickly. As he finished and stood I placed two cups of coffee-to-go in his hands before he could reach for his wallet. "One for you, one for whoever was on the phone. Now get lost."

He grinned and shook his head, but left without complaint.

* * *

The rest of the day passed quickly for me, it was busy enough to keep me moving but not so busy that it was overwhelming, even though one of the new girls hadn't shown up for her shift.

I left early in the afternoon but I didn't have any errands to run, so I ended up walking around the block of businesses near my restaurant. It was nice out, almost too warm, but not quite. I spent the time contemplating my house. It really was time to sell it, past time really. I should probably start by going through the things there and deciding what I wanted to keep. I hadn't touched my parents bedroom since I got back from school, it was probably pretty dusty by now and if I waited too much longer it would be too hot out to keep the windows open while I worked. I could always use the furniture to furnish a few of the currently empty apartments. It was much easier to rent out furnished places and there was more than enough furniture in the house.

I could start that tomorrow. It was probably time I take off from working for a while anyway and let the long time waitresses train the two new people. If the other girl showed up. We had called her twice but there was no answer from the phone number she gave us and it seemed like overkill to go to her house. It was only her third day; maybe she had decided to quit. It happened pretty often when new hires realized that customer service could be very stressful at times.

By the time I made it back to the building, my mind was made up. It was time for me to do the reasonable thing and sell the house. It was time I grew up a little and stopped clinging to the way things used to be. It was advice I had given to many people in the last year working as a waitress, and it was time I followed it myself. I would start by moving the things in my spare room into the other empty apartment on my floor. I didn't really anticipate ever having guests over, but having a spare room if needed seemed logical since i already had plenty of furniture.

I left my door open in the hallway as I moved things, and I had music turned up so loud that I didn't notice the presence of another person right away, which meant I jumped a little when I turned around to see Lance standing in my door way.

"I was just heading upstairs when I heard the music," he said when I turned the speakers down. "Interesting taste."

"It was on shuffle," I said defensively. The music was somewhat heavy metal, and I didn't listen to it often but it was very motivating when moving things around I had found.

"Are you moving out?" He asked, glancing around the nearly empty room.

"Nope. Moving in," I said, grinning at his confused look. "I decided this afternoon that I should sell my parents house and fully move in here. I spend most of my time here anyway."

"In an empty apartment?" He asked.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I have people over to entertain," I said shrugging.

"You know, your need to spend so much time working probably stems from-"

"From the need to push away all strong emotions concerning the death of my parents and all that jazz," I interrupted. Usually I was a lot nicer than that, but I had already spent enough time thinking about my parents today, I didn't want to spend any more. "Sorry, thanks for trying to rationalize my behaviors for me."

"Well that's what I do," he said, smiling.

"Don't you get tired of talking about work all the time?" I asked lifting a plastic crate full of ceramic coffee cups.

"Not really," he said, following me into the apartment across the hall. "Most of the people I work with on a daily basis don't like psychology so I rarely get a chance to finish an observation."

"Well then I'm sorry for interrupting you," I said, setting the crate down with a sigh. Ceramic dishes were heavier than they looked when stacked together. "Feel free to make any observations or comments about me that you feel you need to. I'll try not to interrupt again."

"Uh, thanks," he said, following me back to my apartment. "Do you want some help?"

"Don't you have something more interesting to do?" I asked, then frowned to myself. He probably didn't have plans, since recent breakups usually made going out seem unappealing. "Like drinks with your work friends?" I added, remembering that I had said he should.

"Drinks is sort of something they only do when they finish a case," he said shrugging. "Right now they are still working on one and no one was free."

"Okay, you can help me," I said, lifting a crate of plates. "On the condition that in a few hours you will go somewhere with me."

"Where?" He asked, loosening his tie a little and walking into the half emptied spare room.

"Anywhere. Somewhere fun," I said, grinning as he attempted to lift a crate of plates from the stack I was working on and huffed.

"These things are heavy," he grunted, following me into the other apartment.

"Well each plate weighs about .4 kilograms, the crate weighs about 2 kilograms and holds about fifty plates, give or take, so it actually only weighs about 22 kilograms, or 48.5 pounds. It's just the shape of the crate that makes it seem heavy because it's awkward to lift," I said, setting the crate down and turning. "If you hold your arms at a 90 degree angle and use your hips to lift, it's much easier."

"So basically you are telling me that my arms are weak?" He asked, grinning to let me know he wasn't offended.

"Yes," I said, straight faced. He frowned, thinking I was being serious but then I grinned too. "So, what's fun in DC in the late afternoon?"

"I have no idea," he said, following me back to my apartment. "Bars, I guess."

"Nah," I said, shaking my head. "Bars are for people who want to meet other people, but they aren't necessarily fun."

"I don't really go out much," he said, frowning in thought. We had made two more trips back and forth before the idea hit me.

"I know where we can go," I said, grinning.

"Where?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. He seemed to be in a much better mood now then he had been this morning.

"It's a surprise," I said, lifting another crate, this one full of silverware. "But you can't wear a suit."

"I have other clothes," he said, frowning.

"Great. Go change now then. If we leave in an hour we should be there at the best time," I said, catching sight of the setting sun out my window.

"Yes because following a near stranger to an unknown location after sunset seems safe to me," he said sarcastically.

"I promise not to murder you or steal your wallet and ditch you in a bad part of town," I said, grinning, then pointed toward my door. "Now go away." He went, shaking his head. I locked the other apartment door then went to take a shower.

My hair was slightly easier to manage wet, it didn't start frizzing into tight curls until it was half dry, so I was able to braid it back away from my face with relative ease. I didn't bother putting makeup on as it would just become smudged when I went to sleep later and it was already almost dark out so it wouldn't be visible anyway. It was cool enough out after sundown to wear jeans and a long sleeved shirt, which was probably good since they were the only non work clothes I had in this apartment. The dark blue of the shirt made the light blue of my eyes stand out, which I liked, but I had to remind myself that I didn't need to look nice, this wasn't a date, this was to make someone who was sad go out and do something fun. I tied a strip of lighter blue fabric over my hair as a headband to keep the now drying curls from coming out of the braid, then I slipped on my shoes and left, locking the door behind me.

Lance was just coming down the stairs as I shut my door, and I turned and grinned, noticing that he was dressed similarly to me, jeans, long sleeved shirt, sneakers.

"Great, lets go," I said, leading him down the stairs.

"So where are we going?" He asked once we hit the street. There were a lot of people out still since it was relatively early in the evening, and we maneuvered around some of the window shoppers until we were a few blocks away on an emptier sidewalk.

"You know where the Natural History Museum is?" I asked, keeping a brisk pace as we rounded a corner.

"It's in the other direction," he said, glancing behind us.

"Yes, well there's a street that runs behind it for a few miles until it hits the river, and theres a nice little park there," I said, tucking my hands into my pockets.

"We are walking a mile to go to a park at night?" He asked, frowning.

"Sort of," I said. "But there are always fun things happening there, and I happen to really like the Monday night events. I think you will too."

"Uh huh," he said, disbelieving. I ignored him and we walked in silence for a while. "It is a nice night for a walk, I'll admit."

"I agree," I said, nodding.

"So, I don't really know that much about you," he said a moment later, plainly feeling that conversation was necessary. I shrugged.

"There's not that much to know," I said.

"Why did you go to Harvard?" He asked.

"My parents wanted me to," I said. "And I enjoyed it, for the most part. I learn pretty quickly, so school was easy."

"And you left when your parents died?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said softly. "It was a car accident, drunk driving hit and run, they didn't catch the guy. But after that I sort of lost interest in school. My parents were pretty well off so I didn't have to worry about getting a job to pay for school, and now I just like waitressing because I like talking to people."

"My parents passed away a couple years ago," he said. "They were both elderly and it was sort of expected, but that doesn't really make it easier."

"I'd imagine that would be harder," I said, watching my feet as we walked. We had slowed our pace a little as we talked. "You know its going to happen but you can't really prepare yourself for the death of a parent, even though its inevitable."

"Yeah," he said, his voice low. "I didn't have any other family either."

"So now you're alone," I concluded. "Me too. Well, I have some family on my moms side but they are important in something or other and my mom didn't keep in contact with them. I think they live around here though. Lets talk about something less sad."

"Okay," he said, clearing his throat. "Are you a cat or dog person?" I chuckled.

"Both. When I was little we had this German Shepard named Brian," I said, grinning. "We called him Brian because my dad said he had a friend named Brian that looked like a dog. We had cats too, after Brian died. Two of them. One was named Thunder and the other was Oreo."

"We had a cat named Thunder once, when I was little, like seven or so I think," Lance said, chuckling. "My dad hated it because it would claw up the sides of the couch."

"Ours never did that," I said, smiling. "I think my mom may have gotten them declawed, but I'm not sure. We're close, hear that?" There was a low, rhythmic thrumming sound coming from ahead of us where I knew the park to be in a couple blocks.

"Is that music?" He asked, tilting his head to one side.

"Sort of," I said, not wanting to spoil the surprise. "I came here a lot when my parents died as a way to get away from everything for a while. I haven't been here in months though. I'm glad they still have it." We turned the last corner and the sound of talking and laughing swept over us, along with a very strong smell of weed, and the sound of pounding drums.

"Please tell me we aren't here to do drugs," Lance said as we approached a group of people sitting in a circle on the grass.

"No," I said, grinning. "We are here for this." I waved my hand over one of the groups of people forming a drum circle. Everyone had some sort of instrument, ranging from actual skin drums to plastic buckets and twigs as sticks. They kept of a nice rhythm, a few of them singing in a language I thought might be african, but I wasn't sure. A little distance away there were bonfire barrels where people were talking, and past that I could see a few people playing guitar for a gathered group.

"A drum circle?" He asked as we hung back a ways.

"Yep," I said, grinning. "It's easy, come on, I'll show you," I said, tugging him along as someone stood from the circle. I pulled him down next to me, picking up the now vacated bongo type drum. The people on either side of us shifted to make room and smiled at us. The beat of the song was simple to pick up and the pattern was familiar from other times I'd been here. It really was just a repeating pattern of five hits, two quick ones on the side of the drum, one long beat in the middle, then two short ones again, this time on the rim. I repeated it a few times, falling into the song, then shifted the drum onto Lance's crossed legs.

"I don't know how to do drums," he protested. "I'm more of a piano guy."

"Come on, its easy," I said, laughing as I relaxed into the familiar atmosphere. "And if you mess up no ones going to notice. Here," I said, reaching across him to grab his hands. "If you play piano you must have some sense of a beat." I tapped his hands through the pattern twice, then released them. He continued it, a little slow at first, but then he picked it up. "See, easy."

"Where did you learn this?" He asked as the song shifted into another one, this one I recognized from my previous times here. He slid the bongo drum back over to me, and I picked up the beat for the song again as the singers fell into silence for the intro part.

"I found this park by mistake when I was wandering the area a few weeks after my parents died," I said, grinning as the pace began to quicken a little. "There was a woman there, her name is Casai, she taught me. She might be here tonight," I said, glancing around the bonfires again.

There were maybe forty people in our circle, which was more than what I was used to, but only a handful of them seemed to fully know what they were doing, they were the ones singing the traditional African songs. This one, I knew, opened with a shouted phrase after the fourth bar, and I joined in when they started it, grinning as the newer people jumped a little, not expecting the sound. The rhythm of the circle faltered for a second, but it picked back up quickly, and within moments, the sining started again, and two girls got up to do the dance that accompanied this piece.

"Oh," I said, grinning. "That's her," I said, nodding to the darker skinned of the two dancing woman. She was only in her late forties, but her hair was a bright gray color that stood out as she swayed. She spotted me and grinned, raising her hands in greeting and dancing closer to me.

I passed the drum over to Lance again, just in time for Casai to grab my outstretched hand and pull me up into the middle of the circle with her and the other girl. Both of them were wearing full length brightly colored skirts, which made the dance look better, but I joined in anyway, remembering the steps she had taught me after a few fumbling steps. This style of dancing was mostly about swaying the hips and throwing in a wide step here and there, but it still took my body a minute to remember the motions. It probably looked odd from the outside, as this was obviously an african style dance and music, and I was very pale with red hair and blue eyes, but that was my favorite thing about this place. It didn't matter what race you were, if you wanted to learn the culture, you could.

There were quite a few bystanders outside the circle, and on one of the spins in the dance I noticed a group of high school aged people nearby. I nodded at them after catching Casai's eye and she grinned in a wolf like way and danced around a drummer to grab the hand of the closest girl and pull her in with a spin. The girl, caught off guard, let herself be spun into the circle and I caught her hand and spun her again. She laughed, obviously not embarrassed by her friends teasing shouts, and it only took her a moment to fall into a similar dance of moving her hips to the beat. She didn't know the footwork, obviously, but she seemed to be enjoying herself, which was the point, in my opinion.

When that song ended, the circle fell into talking and laughing, and I made my way back to Lance knowing Casai was trailing behind me.

"Very good Mtoto," Casai said, her voice heavy with her accent. I guessed she was from either Kenya or Rwanda, from her accent and use of the Swahili language, though she had never told me outright. "I thought you may have forgotten about us. It has been a long time."

"I've been busy," I said, though I knew that wasn't a good excuse. Casai had led us over to one of the bonfire barely as the drum circle began a new beat.

"Busy is no excuse," she said, reading my mind. "Who is your friend?"

"This is Lance. Lance, this is Casai," I said, gesturing between them. Masai looked him over with sharp brown eyes, then nodded, her mouth spreading into a toothy grin.

"You are a quiet one," she said, and I rolled my eyes.

"You are intimidating, Casai," I said, nudging Lance with my elbow. "We are here for something fun to do."

"To take your mind from the troubles of life, music is the best cure," she said, grinning again. Her accent made the words sound like an old proverb.

"I don't think that's scientifically accurate," Lance muttered to me as Casai turned to go back to the drum circle.

"Maybe not, but it definitely works better than drugs or alcohol," I said, grinning. He didn't reply, instead opting to follow me to the next group of people, this one mostly listening to two people playing something I didn't recognize on guitars. With the faded sound of the drum circle to keep beat in the background, the guitars sounded like a miniature band, in my opinion. "Let's sit," I said, spotting a tree nearby that was close enough to listen, but far enough away that we wouldn't disturb anyone by talking. We settled into the grass and sat in silence for a few moments, and I closed my eyes, letting the sounds of the guitars, drums, talking, and in the distance, a river, fill my mind.

"Why haven't you been here in a while?" Lance asked after a few moments of silence. I shrugged without opening my eyes.

"I've just been busy I guess," I said, though I knew that wasn't true. I frowned, then decided that I may as well continue since it wasn't fair of me to ask him things about his life then not be honest when he asked about mine. "And I suppose that I lost motivation to really go out and do things after a while. Work just seemed more important. And I think maybe I felt like enjoying myself meant I didn't care about my parents."

"I'm sure they would want you to have fun," he said, and though my eyes were still closed I could hear him leaning back against the tree, relaxing a little, finally.

"I know," I said. "It's just hard to go out and have fun when you feel like you should be sad for the loss. Time heals everything though. I'm definitely more open to having fun now then I was last year at this time."

"That's good," he said, and I nodded to myself.

"So do you want to talk about Daisy yet?" I asked. "Talking about it will make you feel better."

"I know," he said, then sighed, and I opened my eyes when I heard him shift beside me. He was watching the guitar players, his elbows resting on his crossed legs, hands supporting his head. "I guess I'm not really surprised things ended the way they did. We were engaged once, like a year ago."

"What happened?" I prompted when he fell silent.

"She left to go on this archeological dig somewhere in Asia or Africa for a year and we called it off," he said, frowning. "But then we just sort of started dating again when she came back, and we never really talked about anything important. We were only going to be moving in together because both of our apartment leases were up at the same time and I thought it would be a good idea, but she thought it meant we were getting married. I love her, but she's just not… I don't know." He ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

"She's just not the right one," I suggested, and he nodded. " So who's the right one then?" I asked, leaning my head back to look up at the sky. The leaves of the tree obscured most of the view, but there were a few of the brighter stars that filtered their way through the foliage.

"I have no idea," he said, giving a snort that might have been a derisive laugh, but sounded more like a hopeless one. "Maybe… maybe she is the right one and I just ruined it."

"Maybe," I said, shrugging against the tree.

"You aren't making me feel better," he said in accusing voice.

"I didn't know I was supposed to be," I said, chuckling. I sat forward and faced him. "Okay, look at it this way. You and Daisy were obviously very compatible, right?" I asked, and he nodded, frowning a little. "Well, there are over seven billion people in the world, most of which you haven't met yet so the chances of you only being compatible with one person out of seven billion is just not plausible. Somewhere in that seven billion, statistically there are a few exactly like her, and more that you would be even more compatible with."

"Seven billion is a lot of people," he said with a sigh.

"Exactly. So the chances of you meeting someone else you can share a connection with is very high," I said, nodding to myself. "But first you need to stop being all sad and mopey. Go out and have fun and meet new people."

"If you believe your own advice then why aren't you with someone?" He asked, and I frowned in thought. It had been a while… a few years at least.

"I never said I wasn't dating someone," I said to give myself time to think of a good response.

"You never leave your house or work, your apartment is practically empty, and you said yourself that you lost the motivation to go out and do things," he said.

"Alright, fair," I said, smiling a little. "I guess I've always liked being independent and I don't feel alone since I spend most of my time around my employees or customers."

"That makes sense I guess," he said, his fingers tapping the grass in time with the music. I had begun pulling up the tips of the grass, making a small pile on my knee as I spoke.

"Tomorrow night we will go out to a bar. No wait, the day after tomorrow we will go out to a bar, and you will pick up some random girl and go back to her place," I said, grinning as I tugged up more grass ends to add to my pile. "That's the best way to move on from a relationship.

"I don't have a choice in this do I?" He asked, his voice resigned but amused. I shook my head.

"You learn fast," I said, grinning. "You have no choice. You can consider it as repayment for my kindness in letting you live in one of my apartments."

"Oh I see," he said, chuckling. "So you pretend you are being nice and then blackmail people later?"

"Exactly," I said, nodding with a chuckle.

"Hey," a voice said, interrupting our conversation. It was a young guy, probably in his early twenties, and he was obviously stoned out of his mind. "You guys want some weed?" He held up a little baggie and waved it around. "I'll sell you an eighth for twenty bucks, I really need some money."

"No thanks," Lance said, and I could tell he was holding back some comment he wanted to make. I fished through my pocket and pulled out twenty dollars and held it out to the guy, who grinned widely.

"I don't want that," I said when he thrust the bag toward me. "You can just have the money."

"Seriously?" He asked.

"Yes," I said, holding back a laugh. "And in the future you should be more careful who you try to sell to. We could be cops or, I don't know, FBI agents."

"Yeah right," he said, pocketing his bag and the money. "Thanks dude." I shook my head a little as he swaggered away across the grass.

"You know that he's probably just going to buy more drugs with that," Lance said.

"Or maybe he has a kid and is trying to buy food for him, or maybe he's late on his rent and is about to get kicked out, or maybe he owes someone else," I said, picking up my now sizable pile of grass shreds and getting to my feet. "You shouldn't be so judgmental of people, you know. It makes everyone seem like they are horrible."

"Yeah well, most people are horrible," he said, standing up as well. I waited till he was on his feet but not yet balanced, then tossed my handful of grass over his head.

"You have a bleak outlook," I said, chuckling at his surprised little jump.

"You just threw grass in my hair," he said, trying to brush it out.

"Yes, I know, I'm a terrible person. That's the worst thing I've done all day," I said, laughing as he gave up and shook his head back and forth. This served more to mess up his hair than to get the grass out and I laughed again and started off toward the street. He caught up after a little ways.

"Where are we going?" He asked, falling into step beside me.

"You can go wherever you want. I'm going to get some food, I haven't eaten all day," I said, heading down a different road than the one we had taken to get here. "You can join me if you want." He didn't say anything, but he didn't leave, which was good. It meant I hadn't embarrassed him by asking about Daisy, which meant he either wasn't as broken up about her, or his mind was on something else now, which had been the point of the evening.

We settled for pretzels from the first street vendor we passed, and walked slowly as we ate, heading in the direction of the Diner. We continued to walk slowly, and in silence, even after we had both finished the pretzels. It was well after midnight by the time we got back to the street the diner was on, but the night had stayed warm and the stars were visible even over the street lights.

"Thanks," Lance said as Kate pulled open the doorway that led to the stairs. "Not for the door. I mean, thanks for that too I guess, but I meant thanks for…"

"Distracting you from reality for a few hours?" I suggested, grinning as we climbed up the stairs.

"Yeah, that," he said.

"You're welcome," I said, stopping on the landing outside my apartment hallway. "I'm free to do the same anytime you want. Except tomorrow. In fact, let me give you my phone number," I said, shuffling through my purse for one of the business cards I handed out to people looking to rent one of my places. I handed it over to him. "You can call me anytime if you need someone to talk to or have an emergency or anything."

"Thanks," he said, smiling a little as he tucked the card into his pocket. My hair, which had stayed nicely back for most of our walk, was now curling against the back of my neck in an itchy way that was growing more and more annoying, so I gave him another smile, and turned to go inside my apartment to let it out of its braid.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The next day I got up before sunrise and took a cab to my parents house. It looked so cheery from the outside, with the rays of the early morning sun hitting the tops of the trees. I didn't stop to look at the yard for more than a second. I hadn't been to this house for more that just sleeping and grabbing clothes for almost six months. I had never gone through all my parents clothes, nicknacks, paperwork, even their dishes were still where they had been left in the kitchen cupboards a year ago.

As I walked through the hallways to my old bedroom, I decided that I may as well start with my things, since they would be the least memory inducing to go through. Unfortunately, it only took me about an hour to sort through what I would be keeping. The bed, of course, could replace my little bed at the apartment. My bedding and cloths were folded up on top of the mattress. My books I would get rid of. Most of them anyway. I'd had them since before I went off to college, and hadn't looked at them in close to ten years. Other than clothes and books, I had a handful of paintings and other little things, but my room was mostly empty.

I went through the kitchen next, as I figured that would have the next least memory inducing things. I found, as I was going through my mothers old china dishes, that if I let my mind wander while I worked, I wouldn't think about all the times I had been in here with her, learning how to cook, or the times that all three of us sat on the kitchen island and ate ice cream at midnight, or the time the family dog and I had tracked mud across the tiles in patterns because I thought it was fun and mom had made me clean it up with a bucket of soapy water, which had been nearly as much fun as the mud once she joined me.

I didn't realize I had tears dripping down my face until they dripped onto my hands. I wiped them away quickly, then sighed and got back to work. Maybe this would have gone better if I had brought something to play music on, but I hadn't thought that far ahead.

I had planned to sleep at the house that night, but by the time the sun started setting, I didn't want to look at anything else here. I had gotten through most of the downstairs in the main part of the house, dad's office had been the easiest, much easier than the kitchen, because I hadn't been allowed to play in there as a child so I had no fun memories to fall back on. I did find a lot of his paperwork though. I'd have to find a lawyer or financial advisor who would be able to go through all of it and tell me what was important. The next day I would have to go through my parents room upstairs, and the attic. Most of the other rooms in the house were unused.

At some point I had started a system of separating the things I would take with me from the things I didn't want to keep, and it resulted in several messy piles of things spread across the otherwise pristine rooms. I stood, hands on my hips, surveying the house for a moment.

When I had been nine I had tripped down the stairs and broken my leg right there. And in the entry hall was where I had gotten stood up for my prom and had sat crying into my mothers shoulder for an hour until my dad had put on some music and grabbed my hands and waltzed me around the living room until I was laughing. In the downstairs hallway I had taken my first steps, which had been proven by one of the home videos my mother had forced me to watch when I was a teenager. My first boyfriend and I had been caught kissing on the living room couch. The couch had since been replaced, but the hunting rifle my dad had decided to put on display over the fireplace after that was still there. When I had been four, my dad had lifted me up onto his shoulders and ran around the room chasing my mother, and I had hit my head on that doorframe. It hadn't hurt much but I had gotten a Popsicle and attention for the rest of the night. There was a crack on the side of the living room wall where the driveway cane close to the house, that had formed when I had accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake when I was learning how to drive. My dad had later given me that car, the front bumper still dented from where I had hit the wall, saying that I had broken it so now I was the one who would have to be seen driving it. That had been my first car. It had died five years later when the roads had been icy and I had driven it into a ditch. I remember thinking my dad would be angry I had crashed the car, but he was only happy that I hadn't been hurt.

My doorbell ringing shrilly drew me out of my memory trip. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath, then turned to answer the door.

"Katlin James?" The man asked.

"Um, yes?" I said, my voice scratchy and tired. I really wasn't in the mood to deal with solicitors right now.

"Special Agent Booth from the FBI, I'd like bring you down to the FBI building to answer a few questions," he said, standing aside with his arm outstretched towards a black SUV. I suddenly wasn't tired anymore. What could be so bad that the FBI was knocking on my door? I didn't have any remaining family, so no one was dead.

"Uh, sure," I said, knowing that if I resisted it would make me look as though I was hiding something. I locked the door behind me and followed the man to his car. He didn't speak the entire trip back to town, and I didn't want to ask him about why I was being brought in, in case I said something wrong. It was best to not say anything at all, I guessed.

Rather than being driven to the front door like I expected, he pulled into an underground parking garage and escorted me into the building through back hallways and an elevator. Then, instead of immediately asking me questions, he ushered me into what was obviously an interrogation room, then left, shutting the door behind him. I took a seat in the chair across from the door, then settled in to wait.

Lance had said he worked for the FBI, maybe I should mention that to this guy. But then again, what if Lance had been lying? He hadn't seemed like it at the time. Or what if he didn't want his co workers to know where he was living? I didn't want to mess up his work relationships. Besides, I didn't actually have his phone number, I had just given him mine. I did have internet though, I realized. And if he worked for the FBI, he would be somewhere on the internet. I didn't have to ask him for help or anything, just ask him if it was okay if I mention him, if asked. I pulled my phone out to google him while I waited. It was relatively easy to find him, well, his office number anyway. It was nearly eight though, so chances were he wouldn't be there.

I didn't have a chance to call him anyway, since the other guy came back into the room, carrying a glass of water, which he set down in front of me. I smiled, but I wasn't thirsty, so I didn't drink from it.

"Okay, Kaitlin James," he said, shuffling through a file he set down in front of him. "You own a restaurant a few blocks from here called Kate's Diner, correct?" I nodded, frowning a little. Had something happened at the restaurant? "And you own several apartment buildings around town? Including one on the corner of Michigan and Elm?" I nodded again. I hadn't been out to that building in quite a while. I had a building manager there who took care of all the tenant problems, including maintenance and renting, and he just sent the rent checks on to me each month. "Alright, and where were you last night between the hours of 5pm and midnight?"

"Can I ask what this is about, please?" I said after a moments hesitation. "Is something wrong with that building?"

"A few hours ago we discovered the body of a girl in the dumpster behind the building," he said, and I frowned. "She was wearing a blue polo shirt that said 'Kate's Diner' across the back. We think she was murdered."

"Oh," I said, still frowning. "I have an alibi for last night, if thats what you are asking."

"Great, let's hear it," he said.

"I took a walk around the block at four or so, then I went back to my apartment around five and began rearranging some things. At seven I went to that little park by the river and listened to their little music festival they have there on Monday's. Then I walked back to my apartment. I stopped at a food cart on the way, and arrived back just after midnight," I said.

"Apartment?" He asked. I nodded.

"I have been staying in an apartment over the restaurant on and off for the last year. It's easier than traveling after a late shift and no one really wants to live directly above a restaurant that is open all night anyway, so it's not really needed," I explained.

"Right," he said, raising an eyebrow. "And is there anyone who can collaborate your alibi?"

"Yes," I said, nodding. He stared at me for a moment, obviously expecting me to continue speaking.

"Well?" He asked. "I'm going to need names and phone numbers."

"Don't I get one phone call when I'm being arrested?" I asked, changing the subject. I crossed my arms across my chest and leaned back from the table.

"Are you asking for a lawyer?" He responded.

"No, of course not," I said, frowning. "I don't need a lawyer, I didn't do anything wrong. I just asked for a phone call."

"Well you aren't being arrested," he said, glaring. "Yet."

"Oh," I said, frowning again. "Well, can I have a phone call anyway?"

"Why do you need it?" He asked, leaning forward.

"I want to make sure it's okay with the person I was with yesterday if I tell you their name," I said.

"Fine," he said after a moment of incredulity. "Call whoever you want, but I'm staying in the room."

"That's fine," I said, taking my phone out of my pocket. I dialed the number I had googled earlier and waited, hoping he was still in his office this late. It rang six times, and my heart had started to sink a little, when he answered.

"Hello?" He asked, slightly out of breath.

"Uh, hey, this is Kate," I said, suddenly feeling a little awkward.

"Oh, hi Kate. How did you get my office number?" He asked, his voice sounding a little lighter than it had moments ago.

"The internet," I said, and couldn't help rolling my eyes.

"Right," he said. "Uh, why are you calling?"

"Well, I sort of have a problem," I said, frowning at the big man across the table. He was leaning forward, trying to catch the other side of the conversation too, but my phone volume was pretty low, so I was sure he couldn't get much. "I was just arrested by this giant FBI guy and now he's asking if I have an alibi for last night and I was just wondering if it was okay if I give him your name?"

"What?" He practically shouted. I held the phone away from my ear for a second, and I was sure the big guy had heard that. "I'll be right there."

I glanced at my phone for a second, then frowned, seeing he had hung up.

"So, alibi?" The guy asked. I glanced up and shrugged.

"Uh, I think I have one," I said.

"You think?" He started, getting mad again, but then the door swung open.

"Booth, she was with me all afternoon yesterday," Lance said, slightly out of breath again.

"Sweets?" Booth asked, glancing between the two of us. Finally he sighed and gestured for Sweets to shut the door. "Okay, what is going on?"

"This is Kate," Sweets said, though it was obvious that Booth would know that from the questioning. "I've been living above her restaurant for the last few days. Yesterday we went to some park and walked around for a while."

"Uh huh," Booth said, frowning. "Whatever. You can stay I guess but I still have some questions."

"Great," Sweets said, sitting beside me rather than across the table where Booth had obviously meant for him to sit. I smiled at him, then turned back to the table.

"Why couldn't you just tell me that Sweets was your alibi?" He asked, trying to get back on the course of his questioning.

"I didn't know if he wanted people he works with to know where he was living so I didn't want to ruin his working relationships by telling you something that wasn't really relevant to your investigation," I said, all in one breath. "Besides, it's not really my place to go around telling people about everyone who lives in my buildings. I know of at least two girls who are hiding from abusive ex's or families. How did I know if Lance wasn't doing something of the same type?" He just sighed and shook his head, opening his file again.

"Do you know this girl?" He asked, sliding a couple pictures across the table to me. I glanced at them. One was what looked like a computer drawing of a young girl with dark hair and blue eyes. That one was okay. The other two pictures were of the same girl, obviously dead. Her face was bloated and red, her eyes were open and empty, the side of her head and her hair was caked with what looked like garbage and dried blood. I gathered them into a stack with the computer image on top and pushed them back across the table.

"That's Marlene Charleson," I said, my voice less confident than it had been a few minutes ago. I had never liked dead things, not even in movies, and it was even less pleasant when it was someone I had met. "She was hired about a week ago, worked for two days, then didn't show up for her shifts yesterday or the day before."

"Why didn't you report her missing?" He asked, and I nearly jumped when I felt Lance's hand rest on my shoulder. I cleared my throat and sat up straighter.

"I didn't know she was missing," I said. "She's… she was… young. Sometimes the kids we hire don't realize how stressful it can be to work a customer service job and they leave the first time a customer yells at them or they mess up. I thought she had just changed her mind about working with us. It happens so often. I had an address on file for her, but it seemed like overkill to go to her place when she had only worked for me for a couple days, and I had only spoken to her once. I would have done that if any of my long time employees missed a few days of work without a call, but I honestly just thought she had quit."

"So she didn't live in one of your buildings?" Booth asked, and I shook my head.

"No, she didn't," I said, then frowned. "Although… on her application she said she was referred to work there by one of her friends, and a girl by that name does live in one of my places, though I'm not sure if it's the same girl. And she doesn't live in the building you found Marlene by."

"What's this girls name?" He asked, jotting down some notes on a pad of paper. I hesitated, and he looked up. "Look, this is a murder investigation. I understand you have some sort of 'landlord-renter' confidentiality thing, but we need to know this."

"Her name is Abby Scholtz," I said, frowning. "She lives in my building on First Street, between Grant and Wyatt. She's very nice though, I really don't think she could do something like this."

"Very nice people are usually the ones who do things like this," Booth said. I frowned. I disagreed with that, but I wasn't about to argue. "Do you know if she has any family in the area?"

"Abby? No, she doesn't," I said.

"I meant Marlene," Booth said with an impatient sigh. I couldn't help the little smile that came when I realized I was annoying him, but it faded as I focused on recalling her application.

"She didn't write down an emergency contact," I said, frowning. "I don't know about family. The address she gave was 1443 22nd Ave, unit B."

"And you just happen to know that off the top of your head?" Booth asked, looking suspicious again. I couldn't help grinning this time.

"I have eidetic memory," I said. "I remember everything."

"Right," Booth said, rolling his eyes. "Okay, you aren't under arrest, but you are a suspect in this murder, so don't leave town."

"Can I still go back to the house you picked my up from? It's technically out of town," I said, not able to resist needling him a little more now that I knew I wasn't really in trouble. Lance elbowed my side, and I glanced at him. He shook his head with a frown.

"You can go to your house," Booth said, scowling as he left the room. I turned to Lance.

"Sorry for dragging you into whatever this was," I said, gesturing at the empty room.

"It's fine," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Eidetic memory? You didn't mention that. That's sort of fascinating. I studied a paper on the subject when I was in school and-"

"Yes, yes, very interesting," I interrupted. "I'll tell you all about it later if you want, but for now I want to go home and drink enough alcohol that I don't have to remember that girls dead face, if that's okay with you."

"Need a ride?" He asked, not the least bit offended that I had interrupted him. I sighed when I realized that he didn't mention being cut off because he was probably used to it.

"Alright," I said, my voice noticeably calmer. I waited until we were in the hallway again before continuing. "So what was that paper you read called?" I ignored his slightly surprised glance in my direction as we approached the elevator.

"The Development of Eidetic Imagery and Cognitive Abilities in Children Aged 10-16," he began, and I grinned but didn't interrupt as he went on to summarize the article then point out key points he had agreed with and disagreed with. He spoke almost continuously until we reached the stairs of the apartment building, then he turned to me, frowning. "Okay, you haven't interrupted me this entire time and you actually seem to be paying attention."

"I was paying attention," I said, turning to grin at him. "You get very enthusiastic when you talk about something you are interested in. It's fun to watch."

"So you weren't actually interested in what I was saying?" He asked in a tone that suggested eh was just confirming his thoughts.

"Actually, I've read that article before," I said, holding the door open so he could walk through. He stopped and turned to me with an incredulous look, then he seemed to remember something and he nodded again.

"That's right, I forgot you majored in Psychology too," he said. I chuckled, following him up the stairs.

"I did," I agreed. "But that's not why I've read that paper." We were on my landing now, both standing there so we could continue our conversation. "Do you want to come in? I don't have a couch or anything but I do have a bottle of wine."

"Sure," he said with a shrug, then turned to follow me to my apartment. He noticed that my door hadn't been locked and frowned. "Don't you lock your door?"

"There's nothing in here to steal," I said with a shrug, gesturing to the nearly empty apartment. "And I do most of the time. I must have just been tired when I left this morning. Besides, theres a key above the door frame, and I think there's another one under one of those fake plants," I gestured to the two potted trees in the hallway. "The door downstairs is locked anyway," I continued, walking into my kitchen. I got down the bottle of wine that had been on top of my fridge, then frowned at my cupboards. The only cups I had were coffee mugs. I poured wine into two of them, then walked back into the living room. Lance was looking out one of the windows, but he chuckled when he noticed the cups.

"Very fancy," he commented, accepting his.

"I've never had a guest over here before," I said as way of explanation, then sipped on the wine. It was very good, even though I hadn't chilled it.

"So you were explaining why you had read that article," he said, continuing out previous conversation. "I assume its because of your memory?"

"Wrong again," I said, grinning. "Do you happen to remember the author of that article?" He frowned in though, then shook his head.

"It was a professor at George Washington University," he said after a moment. "I don't remember his name."

"His name was Michael James," I said, repressing a grin at his confused look. Then a look of realization crossed his face.

"Your dad?" He asked, and I nodded, chuckling this time. "My parents both taught there. My mom, Carol, taught Philosophy. I guess they influenced my own majors."

"Interesting," Lance said, obviously thinking. "So both of your parents had very high IQ's, that's probably where you got your eidetic memory. It's usually a recessive genetic trait, but with both parents having above average intelligence, maybe that stimulated your brain development as a child." He contemplated this for a moment, then looked up suddenly. "Uh, sorry."

"It's fine," I said, taking a seat on the floor with my legs crossed. "Like I said, it's fun to watch you talk about something interesting."

"It's nice to talk to someone who actually understands what I'm talking about," he said, taking seat across from me. We drank in silence for a moment, then he sighed. "Maybe today would have been a better day to go to the bar then tomorrow."

"Nah," I said, shrugging as I refilled our cups from the bottle. "Tomorrow, you are going to get drunk, and I will be making sure you don't do anything too stupid." I grinned. "People act particularly stupid when intoxicated if they don't have a babysitter."

"True," he said, chuckling. "So where did agent Booth pick you up from thats outside of town?"

"My parents house," I said, sighing as I remembered the stacks of things I wanted to keep. "I'll have to find someone with a truck to help me move some of the furniture."

"Agent Booth had an SUV," he suggested. I laughed.

"Agent Booth thinks I killed a seventeen year old girl," I said, then frowned. "She was really nice. Marlene. At her interview she said she wanted a job because her parents couldn't afford to send her to college so she wanted to save up for culinary school."

"I'm sorry," Lance said, frowning into his coffee mug of wine. "It's always harder when they are young."

"I don't know how you can work cases like that every day," I said, shaking my head. "You have to meet their families and friends… it must be hard."

"It is sometimes," he said, still looking into his cup. "It's especially hard when the bad guy is the victims parent or family. We had a case two years ago where the mother had obsessive compulsive disorder, and her son was a germaphobe, and she killed him because he was trying to overcome his disorder."

"That's terrible," I said, shaking my head.

"It was," he said, nodding. "She cut him into pieces and buried his head in her back yard. They never would have found it either but one of the old Jeffersonian employees helped out."

"Oh, you work with the Jeffersonian?" I asked, wanting to get the subject away from cut up bodies and dead people. "My parent's frequented that place. My mother had a masters degree in Egyptology, she was always fascinated with their findings there. I used to know one of the anthropologists too, but he hasn't been around in a while. He probably got transferred, he was a genius." I grinned at the memory. He had been such a difficult customer in the beginning that none of the other waitresses would even serve him by the point I arrived home for the summer from school. I had gladly taken over the job of that, and we had gotten into several complicated debated about Philosophy and Psychology, both fields that he had established his dislike for early on. I couldn't recall his name immediately, as it had been many years since I had seen him.

"I've only been working with them for about four years now, so I probably won't know whoever it was," he said, when I didn't continue with a name. I frowned, focusing on going through my memories from years ago.

"This was between my fourth and fifth year of school," I said, frowning. "He told me it was impractical for someone with my IQ to focus my intelligence on something as useless as psychology." I grinned, remembering the argument that had insued after that.

"Sounds like Doctor Brennan," he said with a sigh. "I think most of the so called 'hard science' people think that psychology is useless."

"Because we work of theories not tangible facts most if the time," I said, nodding as I thought. Why was it so difficult to recall a name? We had spoken nearly every day for three summers in a row, but we had very rarely used names, past the introduction, of course.

"There are facts in psychology," he said, his voice having the tone of an old argument.

"I know, I was stating what I've been told," I said, frowning now. "I can't seem to recall his name. How odd." I began my memories again, starting from the year I had mentioned before, and ran through them more throughly. I remembered our first argument, about the nutritional value of organic french fries, which had evolved into the value of eating at locally owned restaurants, which had then changed into an argument of why macaroni and cheese should be added to the menu. "Got it," I said, grinning. "His name was Zack. He's the one who convinced my parents to add mac and cheese to the kids section of the menu. I don't think I knew his last name though. Brown floppy hair, dressed like a teenager, very obstinate."

"Yeah, I know Zack," Lance said, and the tone in his voice made me look up in curiosity, but he didn't elaborate.

"He came in every day all summer, and none of the other waitresses would talk to him because he argued with them," I said, grinning at the memory. Waitresses were very fun to annoy at times. "I saw him every day at breakfast for three, no, four summers, then he stopped showing up one day." I frowned at the memory. I had hoped that we could be qualified as friends. Or at least, friendly acquaintances. Friendly enough that if he had decided to leave the Jeffersonian and go somewhere else, he would have mentioned it. I shrugged after another moment of thought. He wasn't the only customer that I had liked who had stopped coming in randomly. Usually the ones that came in and were lonely or needing advice on something, they would stop showing up when they had someone else to talk to. Zack had been obviously lonely, though he had never said as much.

"He went to Iraq," Lance said, and I frowned.

"Oh," I said, knowing he probably meant that Zack had gone over there and not been able to come back. "That's sad."

"Oh, he didn't die or anything," Lance said, realizing what I assumed.

"He came back after three months, but… he's in a mental institution now," Lance said, frowning into his cup again. I sighed, this was definitely not a happier topic.

"That is unfortunate," I said. I hadn't known Zack all that well, but he had been nice, and sad, and lonely. "Do they allow visitors there? I'd like to see him again sometime. He was my most intelligent customer."

"I'll see about visitors," he said in a tone that obviously indicated the end of the conversation. Something else must have been going on with the situation that I wasn't allowed to know. I sighed, thinking up another conversation topic.

"So what's the weirdest case you've ever worked?" I asked, my voice light.

"Well," he began after a moment of thinking. "There was this one case where the victim had changed from a male to a female, it was very confusing to identify her. And there was one case where Agent Booth and his partner had to work undercover at a circus in Texas to find out who killed a set of conjoined twins."

"Don't you ever work cases that don't involve dead people and murderers?" I asked, frowning.

"Not often," he said, shrugging. "I usually give them a profile on the potential murderer so they have a better idea of who to look for."

"That… doesn't sound like a nice job," I said, shaking my head. "I would not like to be surrounded by killers all the time."

"I like helping put the bad guys behind bars," he said, shrugging. "It's satisfying to know they won't hurt anyone again." His voice was intense, with an underlying tone I didn't recognize for a few moment, but then it clicked in my mind.

"You were abused as a child," I stated, then gasped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I think I've had a bit too much wine." we had nearly finished the bottle, and he was still on his second glass, which meant i had consumed at least 3/4s of the bottle. "Forget I said anything please."

"It's okay," he said, then he sighed. "I was in the foster system as a kid. Some places weren't as nice as others." I rested my hand on his knee, which was the closest part of him I could reach.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me, forget I mentioned it," I said again, then sighed. "I've been trying to find a nice subject to talk about but all of them have backfired on me."

"Nice subjects are hard to find," he said, frowning in thought. "Favorite movie?" I chuckled.

"That would be a good subject, but I don't have a TV," I said, waving my arm at the empty spot against a wall where a TV would fit nicely. "I haven't watched a movie in years."

"Okay, well how about from before that when you had a TV?" He asked, chuckling.

"When I was little we didn't watch TV either," I said, shrugging. "We went to museums or read books or listened to music."

"So you've never seen a movie before?" He asked incredulously.

"No, I've seen some," I said, shrugging. "Just not very many, and definitely not enough to know what my favorite kind would be. I dislike zombie movies and horror movies."

"Okay, well, what are a few movies you have seen?" He asked, frowning.

"Hm, I watched Breakfast Club with my mom once. It was good. I liked that they were debunking stereotypes in high schools. And we watched Titanic, of course. It was okay."

"You need a movie education," he said, frowning to himself. "I'm going to get you some movies you should watch. You have a computer right?"

"Yep," I said, gesturing to the laptop on my kitchen counter. It was half buried underneath this weeks stock order forms and a box of cereal was sitting on top of those.

"I see you use it often," he said sarcastically. I chuckled.

"When I get bored I go downstairs and work," I said, shrugging. "I haven't had a social life till yesterday." I lifted up the last little bit of wine in my cup as a toast to him. He chuckled.

"Glad to be of service," he said in an atrocious English accent. I tried not to laugh but it was just plain terrible.

"That was probably the worst accent I've ever heard," I said, chuckling. He ducked his head but nodded in agreement.

"I'm much better at Australian," he said.

"Great, you can use an Australian accent when we go out tomorrow night. Girls love accents," I said, laughing.

"I don't want to pick up girls," he said, frowning now. "I just broke up and-"

"You don't have to go home with one, just talk to one," I said, shaking my head. "It's the first step to looking less like a sad puppy and more like a human being."

"I do not look like a puppy," he said, shaking his head.

"Right," I said sarcastically. "It must just be the alcohol messing with my head then." I leaned over to poke his face where he had developed a slight pout. He leaned back and stuck his tongue out at me, then laughed.

"You are very drunk," he said as I leaned to one side after being thrown off balance by poking him.

"Nope," I said, getting to my feet. I only swayed a little bit. "I am just drunk enough. And I'm gonna go to sleep now so I can get up and sort through more of my parents things in the morning. You can let yourself out."

"Thanks for the wine," he said, getting to his feet as well.

"Thanks for saving me from your scary FBI friend," I responded, walking into my room. I could hear him chuckling, then the door shut.

I sighed and stripped down to my underwear before flopping onto the bed. The alcohol was making my head swim nicely, but the images of that dead girl's face kept popping up, red and swelling, covered with blood and garbage. I shuddered and curled up into my pillows.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The next morning I woke up in a cold sweat, my blanket tangled around me. It was early, the sun hadn't come up yet, but there was no way I'd be able to go back to sleep. My dreams had been filled with the dead face of Marlene, but my imagination had added rotting flesh and she had had yelled at me as her face had fallen off. I shuddered and climbed out of the bed, feeling more tired than I had when I had gone to sleep. I didn't bother showering, knowing I would just get covered with dust while sorting through my parents things anyway. I pulled on an old work shirt and my jeans from yesterday that were already smudged with dust from the house, and pulled my hair back so it was away from my face.

I bumped into Lance on the stairs on the way down.

"Hey," he said, smiling. "You look really tired."

"I didn't sleep well," I said, then winced. My head was reminding me of why I didn't like to drink too much wine at a time. "My head is pounding."

"I'm not surprised, you were quite drunk," he said as we hit the street. I expected him to turn off to the parking lot, but he started walking down the street.

"I wasn't that drunk," I said, walking beside him. "Why are you going into work so early?"

"Booth called me in," he said, shrugging. "He probably wants me to watch an interrogation."

"And you are walking?" I asked curiously.

"It's not that far," he said, shrugging again. "Besides, Booth usually makes the suspect wait a while before actually questioning them."

"I know," I said, chuckling a little. "He only made me wait long enough to google your office number yesterday."

"Thats short for him," he said with a chuckle. I couldn't help but smile at his laugh. He was in a much better mood today than I had seen him since I had met him. "Wait, where are you going? He didn't ask you to come in again did he?"

"Nah," I said. "I'm heading to my parents house again, hence the old clothes. Everything there is covered in dust since I haven't been there in a while."

"Isn't your parents house out of town?" He asked, frowning.

"Yeah," I said. "Agent Booth said it was okay if I went there again," I said, thinking thats why he was frowning.

"No, it's fine," he said. "I was going to ask why you are walking with me."

"Oh," I said. "Well we were having a conversation. I'll catch a cab when the conversation is over."

"You are a very odd person," he said, shaking his head at me.

"Odd people are the most interesting ones," I replied with a grin as we approached the large FBI building.

"That is true," he said with a laugh. I walked with him to the front doors, then waved as he went inside and hailed a cab. It was much easier to get one here than it was a few blocks over, where the restaurant was.

I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon alternating between packing my clothes and the other things I wanted to keep into the many suitcases we had obtained over the years, and going through the things in my parents bedroom. Admittedly, I didn't get very much done in my parents room because nearly every outfit or object brought back some kinds of memory, and I spent as much time staring blankly at things as I did actually sorting through things.

My clothes and hair were completely coated with dust by the time I gave up for the day, so I decided to shower there, and change into some clothes that would be appropriate for barhopping later. I even went so far as to put on makeup, something I hadn't done in months. I ended up bringing three of the suitcases home with me, though the cabbie gave me a weird look when I directed him from a large house to a dingy apartment building. I ignored his looks, paid him, and made two trips up the stairs with my things. As most of what I had brought was clothes, I began hanging some of the up, but stopped, realizing that I'd have to bring a dresser over at some point too. I sighed flopping down onto my bed on top of the pile of clothes I had laid there.

A knock on my door made me sigh, but I was tired from all the packing I had done today.

"It's open," I called, not wanting to get up.

"Kate?" I sat up.

"Oh hey Kath," I said, coming out into the living room. "I was expecting someone else."

"Yeah, that sad boy you've taken up with?" She asked, snickering as she looked me over. I frowned. I was wearing a skirt and a blouse, neither of which were overly tight or revealing.

"Don't call him that," I said, but shook my head. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah, there's some FBI guy downstairs asking about you and one of the new girls. I told Brian not to say anything till I got back."

"Great," I said, running my hand over my hair. I hadn't done anything to tame it since I wasn't planning on going into the restaurant today, but I didn't want to get it in any food, so I quickly pulled it back into a bun as I followed her downstairs, locking my apartment door behind me.

"So what's this all about?" Kathy asked as we walked down the stairs.

"Marlene, one of the new girls, was found dead," I said, my voice soft.

"Oh," she said in shock. "That's terrible."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "She was wearing our shirt and they found her near one of my apartment buildings."

"So they think you did it?" She asked, her voice low as we paused on the bottom floor landing in front of the door that led into the restaurant dining area.

"Yeah, but I had an alibi and everything, so I'm not sure why they are here," I said, moving to the side as the front door opened so we could keep talking and let by whoever was coming in.

"He had a warrant to search the place," Kathy said, her voice almost a whisper as the person came in the door.

"Kate?" I sighed. Of course it was Lance. I turned to face him.

"Tell him I'll be right there," I told Kathy, and she disappeared through the door.

"What's going on?" He asked, frowning as Kathy walked inside. "Is that Booth?" He asked, catching sight of the man.

"Yeah, Kathy sais he has a search warrant," I said. "I was just going to talk to him.

"Want me to come with you?" He asked, frowning. I smiled, immediately feeling more relaxed.

"You can do whatever you want to do," I said.

"I'll come with then," he said, turning to open the door. I followed him through.

"Hello Agent Booth," I said before Lance had a chance to say anything. Booth glanced at Lance with a frown but didn't comment on his presence.

"Ms. James, we have a warrant to search this establishment," he said, handing me a paper. I flipped it open, then frowned.

"You are looking for salad tongs?" I asked curiously.

"We have determined that the victim was killed with a sharp metal object resembling salad tongs," the woman beside Booth said in a matter of fact tone.

"Feel free to look," I said, gesturing behind the counter. "But could you put your hair up first please ma'am? It's the health code."

"Of course," she said, setting down her flashlight to twist her hair back. Booth shook his head and walked behind the counter and I could hear him arguing with the woman about wasting time. She argued back that it was unsanitary to be in the presence of food preparation when your clothing or hair may distribute particles into the food.

"Who is that?" I asked Lance, watching the two of them going through the stock of silverware with the blue flashlight.

"Oh, thats Dr. Brennan," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets as he watched them. "She's very blunt and she can sometimes be offensive without realizing it, so don't take offense."

"I don't take offense to anything, Lance," I said, chuckling.

"You are very at ease," he said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. "You know if they find anything you are probably back to being their prime suspect."

"You say that as though you don't think I'm a suspect," I said. He glanced at me again, this time full on.

"You were with me when the murder happened," he said. "And even if you weren't, I wouldn't think it was you. From what I've gathered of you, you have a reverence for life, not just humans, but animals and plants too."

"What gave you that idea?" I asked, tilting my head to one side to look up at him.

"One of the only personal affects in your apartment is a picture of you with a dog," he said. "When we were walking to the park the other day, you purposely avoided all the plants growing on the sidewalk, even the grass, and when you tore up grass at the park, you only broke the tips off, you didn't pull up the roots."

"That is an odd leap to make from those observances," I said, but I couldn't help but smile.

"I'm not wrong," he said.

"You aren't," I agreed. "And I'm not nervous about them finding anything back there because we don't use salad tongs to prepare anything on the menu and there are none in back." He chuckled.

"You probably should have told them that," he said, and I shrugged.

"They didn't ask," I said, watching them moving around the kitchen. There was only one customer there, at a table against the window, but the two employees currently on shift were distracted by the cops, so I walked over to him.

"Hi, can I get you anything?" I asked, noticing his empty soda glass.

"Yeah, I had coke," he said in a dry voice. "What going on with those guys?"

"Just a health inspection," I said, grinning. "Were you ready to order?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I want the cheeseburger with all that stuff on it," he said, gesturing to the menu where his order was. "And fries and ketchup."

"No problem, we'll have it right out," I said with a grin. I took his cup to refill it, then shouted his order back to Brian, the cook.

"Kathy, can you go talk to that guy so he stays distracted?" I asked her in a low voice. "He thinks its a health inspection. I'd rather not have word getting out that they are looking for a murderer. It would drive off business."

"No problem," she said, walking over to the guy.

I busied myself with straightening the back while they searched through every drawer and cupboard. It took them nearly an hour to decide there wasn't anywhere else to look, and by then I had finished stocking all the condiments and sugars and things in the waitressing section, and I had wiped down all the tables. We had put up a temporary closed sign after the single customer had left, but as it was beginning to rain outside, most of our regulars hadn't come by. Lance had left to change a while ago, and Kathy had been obsessively rolling silverware into napkins, accumulating a stack big enough that we probably wouldn't have to roll any again for a few days.

"We found no tongs of any kind," Dr. Brennan said, stripping off her latex gloves and dropping them into one of the trash cans. "And I have to say, this place is much cleaner and far better organized than the fast food restaurant I worked at last year."

"Thanks," I said, grinning.

"So, what, you just throw away all the tongs so you don't get caught?" Booth asked, and I turned to frown at him for a moment.

"We don't use tongs to prepare anything on the menu," I said. "And we never have. Also, if you'll remember, I have an alibi that you have already confirmed. Either you trust your systems or you should just arrest me now and save everyone some time. Now, I'm sorry to be rude, but you don't have any proof to hold me on and I have a previous engagement I'd like to get to. I'm sorry that you didn't find anything to help in your investigation, but I've given you all the information I have access to. Excuse me."

I turned and left the room at an even pace, then sighed as I climbed the stairs, coming to a stop halfway up so I could watch out the window on the door for the two of them to leave. It was another five minutes before I saw them walk past, and I briefly wondered what else they had asked my employees. I usually tried my hardest to avoid being rude to people who were just doing their jobs, because I knew they usually didn't have much of a choice, and I already felt guilty for snapping at them.

I was so busy staring out the window at the slight drizzle that I jumped when someone touched my shoulder. I turned and looked up, then smiled at Lance.

"Hey," I said, getting to my feet and brushing off my skirt.

"Hey, you alright?" He asked, and I smiled again.

"I'm fine," I said. "Still want to go out? I know a great place a few blocks from here, we can walk."

"It's raining," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Barely," I rolled my eyes. "You aren't going to melt. Come on, lets go." I grabbed his hand and pulled him the rest of the way down the stairs, only releasing it when we were outside.

"Isn't the rain going to mess up your hair?" He asked, tucking his hands into his pockets as we walked. It was hardly raining by this point, more just misting.

"My hair does whatever it wants and I've given up trying to control it," I said, keeping a straight face. I could tell that it was already straining against my hair tie, falling out into a ponytail rather than a bun. I pulled the tie out of it, letting it poof out into a sort of afro. Lance laughed and patted the top of my hair, which was standing pretty far out from my head.

"You have a lot of hair," he commented as I used the rain water to pat it back into something resembling normal hair, then tied it back up.

"It's very poofy, very curly, and very annoying," I said, shrugging. "I've learned to live with it. The rain is probably making it better actually."

"You are one of the least girly girls I have ever met," he said, shaking his head.

"I'll take that as a compliment, but you should see how many clothes and shoes I own before you decide that I'm not girly," I said, thinking of the piles of clothes and things still on my bed at home and at my parents house.

"Really?" He asked, his face looking a little upset, which confused me.

"Yeah, I haven't really changed sizes since high school so I've accumulated a lot of clothes and things," I said, shrugging as I eyed him curiously. "Is something wrong with that?"

"No, of course not," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just trying to build a profile of you in my mind and every other thing I learn about you makes me have to change it. I think I'm losing my touch as a psychologist." His tone was joking, but there was an undercurrent of something that made me think he wasn't completely kidding.

"You've already said that I'm an odd person," I said, trying to think of a way to word what I wanted to say without him realizing that I knew he was upset. "Shouldn't it then follow that if I'm odd, I am probably harder to profile than people who conform to society's expectations?"

"I suppose," he said. "It's just frustrating. Not you, things at work. I mean, I know that there is a margin for error in things like profiling people, but I'm usually right most of the time, except lately I've been getting more and more little things wrong."

"Well if it makes you feel better I can't profile people at all," I said, smiling a little as we walked. Our pace had slowed quite a bit as the rain had stopped and our conversation had turned more serious. "I mean, I can usually guess why someone does something, but I can't do it the other way around. Like figure out the person that did something without already knowing them."

"Really?" He asked, frowning, but he did look a little less gloomy. "Its just applying the same principals, but backwards. Going from the result to the cause."

"I've never tried to do that," I said. "But I can see how it would be useful to the FBI to have someone who can do that."

"I see what you are doing. You are trying to make me feel better," he said, and I frowned. I though I had been sneakier than that. "Thanks."

"I guess I'm not as subtle as I thought," I said, shrugging. "If trying to profile me makes you upset, you can always just ask you know. I'm pretty open about almost everything."

"I'll keep that in mind next time you confuse me," he said, laughing. I spotted the neon sign of the bar up ahead, and picked up my pace a little. Lightning was beginning to play across the clouds and as much as I didn't mind the rain, going into the bar soaking wet was not something I would enjoy much.

"Okay," I said as we entered the bar. It was crowded, which I had hoped for as it was a Friday evening. " Let's get drinks, and then I'm going to pick someone for you to talk to."

"Why can't I pick?" he said with a slight whine. I grinned at him over my shoulder as we made it to the bar.

"Because you are sad and thus have poor judgment," I said, flagging down the bartender. We got our drinks and moved to the edge of the room as I looked around. I didn't want to set him up with someone who already had a guy with them, that would lead to fighting, or with someone who looked too creepy, that would lead to problems later.

"I'm a little offended that you don't trust my judgment of girls," he said just I spotted the perfect target. A group of girls had sequestered one of the tables. Of the six girls there, five of them were the overly flirtatious, girly girls, but there was one that hung to the back of the group that seemed to just be there because she liked being included. I could tell from the way she swayed a little in her seat that she was already quite drunk.

"Okay, who would you pick then?" I asked, keeping an eye on the table of girls as I threw back the last of my very weak cocktail.

"Her," he said, pointing to a girl at the bar who was chatting with someone who I guessed to be her friend. She was hot, in a classic kind of way, but I could tell from the way her eyes followed passing people that she was looking to hook up with someone.

"Finish your drink," I said, sliding to the bar to order another drink for both of us. I made sure to pull the hem of my shirt lower and slid in between the girl he had pointed out and her friend. Her eyes slid over my chest and my suspicions were confirmed. I was back within a minute, and Lance was frowning at me, which told me he had now noticed the same thing I had.

"Okay fine, obviously my judgment is off," he said, accepting the drink I put in his hand. "Who would you pick?"

"That one," I said, pointing to the girl I had seen earlier. "She's here with friends but she doesn't feel as though she is actually part of their group. She's probably not looking to hook up with someone right away, my guess is that she just got out of a relationship, judging by how drunk she is. Go talk to her."

"And then you will leave me alone about going out and meeting people?" He asked, and I grinned.

"Maybe," I said. "Keep drinking, you aren't nearly drunk enough to be having fun. I'll be over there," I said, pointing to a less crowded part of the bar.

"What should I do if she wants to hook up?" He said, frowning as he looked at the girl.

"If she gets too clingy I'll come save you," I said, laughing. I gave him a push in the direction of the table, then went to find myself a barstool to sit on while I kept an eye on him.

Within five minutes they were chatting excitedly and the girl was definitely flirting back, which I took to be a good sign. While hooking up with someone would be just a rebound thing for him right now, flirting always made people more confident and happier. I went through two more drinks before I got bored of watching them. It seemed to be going well in any case, so I moved my attention to my phone where I had stored a copy of the most recent book I had begun reading. It was easy to zone out the noise of the bar, and I lost track of time quickly, becoming immersed in the text.

My phone battery dying surprised me, since I had remembered fully charging it shortly before leaving the apartment that morning and I hadn't used it all day. I frowned at the black screen for a moment, then sighed and looked up. It was much less crowded than it had been when we had arrived, and I glanced up at the clock above the bar, then had to look again to make sure it was accurate. It was nearly one in the morning, I had just spent three hours reading. I looked around for Lance, but he wasn't at the same table I had left him at. I got off my stool and started to panic a little when I didn't see him. I had promised I wouldn't let him go home with anyone, and I had failed miserably at paying attention.

"Hey," I asked the bartender. "Did you happen to see my friend who was also putting drinks on my tab? Brown hair, about this tall." I held my hand above my head by a good foot. "He was over there like three hours ago." The bartender gave me a look obviously telling me I was asking a dumb question.

"You're Kaitlin James right? I hope so, your's is the only card i have left here," he asked, his voice tired. I nodded, and was about to ask something else when someone draped their arm around my shoulder and stumbled.

"Katie!" I let out a sigh of relief at the obviously drunken voice.

"Lance," I said, balancing him as he swayed again. "You are drunk."

"He should be, he's been drinking steadily for the last four hours," the bartender said, chuckling. "I was about to cut him off."

"Thanks," I told the man, accepting my card back from him. "Come on Lance, let's get you home."

"One more drink," he said, his voice slurring a little. I sighed and tucked my card into my pocket, then turned toward the door knowing he would have no choice but to come along since he was using me to stay on his feet. I wrapped an arm around his waist as he stumbled.

"When I said to get drunk, I didn't mean this drunk," I said, chuckling as he almost ran into the door frame. It was raining heavily when we got outside, which explained why there were very few people left at the bar. He squealed and jumped back against the building when he noticed the rain, which took a few moments. This time I full out laughed. "Come on, it's just a bit of water."

"It's down-pouring," he said, shivering. Neither of us had brought a jacket and the rain was quite cold. Goose bumps started to raise on my arms and I folded them across my chest.

"The sooner we get going, the sooner we can get warm," I said, waving my hand in a 'hurry up' gesture. He wobbled a bit, but the cold rain seemed to be sobering him up a little and he caught up to me quickly. We had only walked a few steps when he stopped again and squinted at me. It was pretty dark out and the street light above us was out, but I couldn't tell when he was looking for. "What's wrong?"

"Your shirt," he said, slowly, glancing somewhere over my head now. I looked down, then rolled my eyes. The rain had made the light blue material practically see through.

"Grow up," I said, chuckling. "It's not like I have anything you haven't seen before. I'm assuming." I started walking again and he jogged a few steps to catch up. "Are you sober now?"

"Not at all," he said, his voice tired now. Something in the tone made me frown.

"Are you okay?" I asked, glancing at him as we walked. His hands were not tucked into his pockets like they usually were when he walked, but rather they were folded across his chest. He might have just been cold, but the stance seemed defensive to me.

"Yeah, just great," he said, his voice biting. I frowned, then grabbed his arm and tugged him to a stop. I searched his face in question for a moment, trying to figure out if he was angry with me or with something else. He met my gaze for a moment, then his eyes dropped to the sidewalk. Not me then. I softened my grip on his arm, then stepped forward and hugged him. He seemed surprised for a moment, but his arms moved to rest around my shoulders and I rested the side of my face on his chest. We stood that way, in the rain, for more than a few seconds, then I pulled away and grinned at him.

"Come on, lets go home," I said, keeping a grip on his hand to pull him along.

"What was that for?" He asked, his voice less harsh now.

"You looked like you needed a hug," I said, smiling a little. Really he just had one of those faces that made me always want to hug him. Like an eternally sad expression. His grip tightened on my hand for a second, and I recognized it as an unspoken thank you. I didn't let go of his hand until we reached the stairs up to the apartments. "So why are you mad at yourself?" I asked as we wiped our wet feet on the door mat. He didn't seem surprised that I had figured that much out about him, he just shrugged.

"I hate that I'm so upset over Daisy," he said. "It wasn't working, it shouldn't be that hard to get over."

"Yes it should," I said as we climbed the stairs. He stumbled more often than usual, which was the only sign he was still drunk as his speech was no longer slurred. "Losing something that was good at one point is difficult, even if it wasn't good at the end."

"I guess," he said, shrugging. We paused on my landing like we always did, even though our conversation had ended.

"If you go upstairs are you going to beat yourself up for having fun tonight?" I asked, knowing that it was probably something I would do in his position. He glanced at his feet, then shrugged.

"No," he said after a pause. I frowned at him.

"You are a terrible liar," I said with a sigh. "Okay, come with me." I led him into my hallway and he followed without argument. In my apartment, I shoved a full glass of water into his hands before I went into my room to change into some dry clothes. He hadn't moved by the time I came out, but was swaying on his feet, whether from the alcohol or from exhaustion I wasn't sure. "Come on, drink." I made sure he finished the whole glass before I led him back out into the hallway and up the stairs to his apartment. I unlocked it with my master key and flipped the lights on as I went in. It wasn't any different from how I remembered it to be, with the exception of some papers on the table and some shoes by the door.

"Wait, what's happening right now," Lance asked, coming to a stop in the middle of the living room. I chuckled.

"I'm making sure you don't do something stupid. Like call Daisy or drown in your own vomit," I said, and he made a face. I wasn't sure if it was at the idea of drunk calling Daisy or throwing up. "Go change," I said, pushing his shoulder toward the bedroom door.

"Why?" He asked, frowning. I sighed. I definitely hadn't meant for him to get this drunk.

"Because your clothes are wet," I said as though talking to a child. He frowned down at himself, as though just now realizing that he was covered in rainwater. I chuckled as he went into his bedroom to change.

After several minutes of silence, I went to knock on his door to make sure he was okay. He didn't answer, so I pushed it open a little. He was laying face down on his bed, totally passed out. I chuckled and pushed the door open a bit wider. At least he had managed to put on dry clothes before passing out. I pushed him over so he was laying on his side, as one was supposed to do with drunk people, then I pulled his blankets up to cover him. I curled up on the end of the couch, falling asleep almost instantly. It had been a long day, and I had consumed quite a bit of alcohol. I probably could have gone back downstairs to my own bed, but years of looking after drunk room mates in college made me hesitant to leave Lance alone. It was my fault he was drunk, so it should be my responsibility to make sure he didn't die in his sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

I wasn't sure at what point my thoughts turned into dreams, but suddenly, I wasn't on the couch anymore. I was still curled up, knees pressed against my chest, but I was on a cold, hard floor. I couldn't remember falling off the couch, which was a little frightening since I could usually remember everything. I opened my eyes and stood up, looking around myself in confusion. I wasn't in Lance's apartment anymore, though I couldn't remember leaving. My head felt fuzzy, my thoughts were coming much slower than usual. Had I been drugged?

The building I was in was completely empty with cement floors and sold looking metal plated walls with big windows. It looked like it could have been a factory building of some sort, but there was no equipment. Sunlight was filtering in through the high windows, and a muffled scraping noise made me spin around fast enough to lose my balance. I scraped my hands on the rough floors hard enough to draw blood, but the scraping noise drew my attention again.

"Marlene!" I cried out, seeing the girl on the floor near me. She was bound up and gagged, struggling to get loose. Her eyes widened in fear as I came closer and I turned to see what she was looking at, but nothing else was behind me. "Marlene, it's Kate, remember me? I won't hurt you." I made sure to move slowly so I wouldn't spook her again. I pulled the gag from her mouth and she started screaming. I tried to tell her to calm down so I could untie her hands, but suddenly she was standing in front of me.

"You!" She screamed at me in anger. "You killed me!"

"No, I swear I didn't!" I said, shrinking away from her as she stalked toward me waving a gun that had come from no where.

"You killed me," she repeated. "Now I'm going to kill you!" She pointed the gun at me and I could feel my heart hammering against my chest as my arms automatically flew up to cover my face. The gun went off with a bang and I screamed as a burning pain came from my leg. Had she missed my chest? "Kate!" She shouted at me, and suddenly I was on the concrete floor and my arms were heavy at my sides. I couldn't move them and my leg had a warm sticky feeling. "Kate!"

"I'm sorry!" I whispered to her as she stalked toward me again.

"Kate!" I could dimly see her mouth moving, but her voice was lower, gravely with sleep and definitely male. I blinked and shook my head.

This time when I opened my eyes, the face I saw was right above me, and it wasn't Marlene's.

"Lance?" I asked, my voice coming out as a whisper of confusion. "What are you doing?" He was leaning over me, holding my arms at my sides, and his face was strained.

"Kate?" He asked, and I frowned. "Are you awake?"

"Of course I am," I said, my brain working overtime to try to figure out what was going on. "Could you let me go?"

"Oh," he said, releasing my arms as though he had forgotten he was holding them. He sat back on his knees and ran a hand through his hair. I sat up, rotating my now sore wrists. We were both sitting on the floor of his apartment, between the couch and coffee table. The room was illuminated by the early morning rays of the sun coming through the living room blinds. A sharp sting on my leg drew my attention back to myself. The thin sweat pants I had thrown on last night had a tear just under my knee on my right leg, and the material was growing dark with something I recognized as blood. I frowned, again confused as I gingerly peeled back the fabric. There was a shallow cut across my skin, and dark bruises were already growing around the injury.

"Um, what just happened?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.

"You were… uh, dreaming, I think," he said, and his tone made my head snap up. He sounded odd, almost frightened. "You were screaming and you sort of, had a seizure? Your leg hit the table," he said, gesturing to the corner of the coffee table.

"Oh," I said, suddenly understanding. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" He asked, his voice suddenly angry. He stood up and paced to the kitchen. I was, once again, confused. Why was he angry? Was he mad that I had stayed there while he was sleeping? Or maybe he was mad that I had forced him to go out yesterday. Or that I had woken him up by screaming. I used my arms to pull myself up onto the couch, then carefully rolled the leg of my sweats up over my knee and began picking out the threads that had started to dry into the blood. I kept my head down as he came back into the room. He handed me a glass of water and a damp towel.

"Thanks," I mumbled, setting the water next to my feet and bringing the towel to my leg to wipe off the blood. He sat on the empty coffee table across from me with a sigh, but didn't say anything as I gently cleaned around the cut, then folded the towel into a square to hold over my knee. Finally I glanced up at him, then away again. He had leaned forward, head resting on folded hands, elbows on his knees, and was watching me.

"Look, I'm really sorry," I said when the silence began to drag out. "I didn't mean to wake you up, or for you to get that drunk yesterday. I just didn't want to leave when you were passed out like that because I know that sometimes drunk people can suffocate in their sleep or get sick and I just felt responsible for getting you in that state in the first place. And sorry about the waking you up part too, I have a very vivid imagination and sometimes that spills over into my dreams and stuff." I clamped my mouth shut to stop my nervous rambling. "Look, I'll just go. I'm sorry," I said again, getting to my feet. My leg did not want to work properly though and I leaned to one side before I could catch my balance.

"Kate," Lance said, standing from the table to catch my arms so I wouldn't fall over. He gave me a gentle push back so I had no choice but to fall onto the couch again. I kept my eyes on my lap, tugging at the edges of the towel anxiously. I really didn't like it when people were angry with me. At least, not people that I actually liked being around. "Kate," this time I had to look up at him. "I'm not angry, if thats whats making you freak out." I let out a breath, not realizing how tense I had been up to that point. "I was just a little… concerned. Are you okay? You just had a seizure."

"No, I'm fine," I said, leaning back on the couch. "I just sometimes… dream enthusiastically." At his raised eyebrow I sighed, then reached down for the glass of water. "When I was little I would sleep walk and freak my parents out, and sometimes if I was having a nightmare I would flail around and hurt myself by accident. I have pills for it but I don't really take them like I should. I didn't mean to freak you out, sorry."

"What were you dreaming about?" He asked, getting up to sit next to me on the couch. This was starting to feel like a therapy meeting. I shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it. He was just trying to help though, I knew, so I couldn't begrudge his curiosity.

"Marlene," I said, and he didn't look surprised. Maybe I had said something about it in my sleep. "Ever since I saw those pictures I've been dreaming about her. She always tells me that it's my fault she's dead, and then she attacks me."

"Why do you think she blames you?" He asked, leaning back against the arm of the couch so that his upper body was facing me. I shook my head.

"I blame me," I said after a moment. "She was wearing my uniform, she was behind my building. That can't be a coincidence. I had to have had something to do with why she died."

"Like what?" He asked, but I didn't really know.

"I don't know," I said, sighing. My knee was starting to really ache now, but the blood had stopped flowing when I peeked under it. "Yes I do," I said, remembering something. "The last time she was working I told her she could leave early. I sent her home two hours before her shift ended because it was slow. And then she disappeared. What if thats why she's dead? If I had let her stay maybe she would still be okay."

"Thats not your fault," he said, his tone soothing. I looked down into my lap, blinking away the sudden moisture in my eyes. I must really have been tired if I was almost crying in front of someone else. "You couldn't possibly have known it was going to be slow that day. There are too many variables there to be able to blame yourself for this." I nodded, knowing that his reasoning was undeniable. I just felt guilty that she was dead. She had only been starting out in life, and now she would never be able to go to college like she had said she wanted to. Tears hit my hand on my lap and I wiped the back across my eyes to try to stop them from falling. "Are you crying?" He asked incredulously. I glanced up, then chuckled at his expression.

"I'm just tired," I said as way of explanation and shook my head. "Surely you are used to people crying during your sessions."

"Well yeah, but I'm not friends with all of them," he said, shifting closer to me so he could wrap an arm around my shoulders in comfort. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder.

"Thats a shame," I said. "You are a really good friend."

"Thanks," He said, his voice rough with obvious tiredness, which, again, made me feel bad for waking him up.

"You should go back to sleep," I said, though I didn't move to lean away from him. His arm was simply resting on the back of the couch, but I felt much more content than I had felt in a long time. I hadn't realized how much I had missed closeness to people, but I must have been lonely before if I was so relaxed in the presence of someone I had only known for less than a week. He might have replied to my comment, but I was asleep again before I heard it.

The next time I woke up, which judging by the amount of light in the room, wasn't that much later, it was with a startled gasp rather than a scream and flailing, which I was glad for, since Lance had also fallen asleep again. I couldn't remember my brief dream this time, only that I had woken with the feeling of falling. By some miracle I hadn't woken him up when I sat forward suddenly, and I couldn't help but grin when I saw him sleeping. He looked like a child when his eyes were closed. After a second of contemplating what to do, I decided I really should just go home. He obviously wasn't going to do anything stupid in a drunken state of mind now that he had slept off most of the alcohol.

I stood from the couch and was reminded immediately of the gash on my knee, which throbbed when I put my weight on it. It had long since stopped bleeding, but my sweats were ruined. I let the leg of them fall to cover my leg, not that it did a very good job of that anymore, and limped to the door, somehow managing to get there without tripping or knocking anything over. I made sure the door was locked behind me and made my way down the stairs, taking nearly twice as long as I usually did to make sure I didn't fall.

It was still early out, not even seven yet, but I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep if I tried. My hair was horribly frizzy because of the rain from last night, so I did my best to make it into a bun, then pulled on a stretchy hat over the top. I hunted down my little first aid kit to bind my cut in case it started bleeding again. The cut itself was shallow and didn't look too bad, but the whole area around it had turned a dark mottled purple color from bruising. Luckily, it was all covered up by the pair of capri pants I pulled from the stack on my bed. I had planned to take a break from my parents house for the day and work at the diner, but with my leg still throbbing, I figured that it would be better to not have to be on my feet all day, so once I was dressed, I went down to the street to hail a cab.

It wasn't until a little before lunch time that I realized I had lost my phone somewhere. I had been regularly taking aspirin as a painkiller throughout the morning, and it had worked to dull the pain a bit, but the thought of having to get up from my parents bed where I had been going through some of the papers I had found in their room, and going to look throughout the whole house for my phone, was just not something I was looking forward to. I sighed and flopped back on the bed, sending up a cloud of dust around me, which in turn made me cough and left me no choice but to get up and go out of the room until the dust cloud faded back down. Maybe I should have kept paying the cleaner my parents had hired years ago. I hadn't thought it necessary to keep her working here since I was the only one there now.

I had just made it to the bottom of the stairs when the doorbell rang. I limped across the foyer as it rang again, twice, in quick succession. I sighed, hoping it wasn't that FBI guy again. I was really not in the mood to be accused of murder again. I pulled the door open, then blinked against the light for a second, then smiled.

"Hey," I said, opening the door wider as an invitation to the two people on the porch.

"Hey," Lance said, walking inside and looking around. "Your house is huge."

"It's not mine, it's my parents," I said, looking curiously at the person with him.

"Hi, I'm Angela," she said, reaching out to shake my hand.

"I'm like completely covered in dust, I don't think you want to shake my hand," I said, holding my palms up as evidence. She laughed, and I immediately liked her, she seemed to be pretty easy going.

"Angela's husband owns a truck and she has offered to help you move some furniture," Lance said, turning back to us with his hands in his pockets in what I was quickly growing to recognize as his default stance.

"Really? That's great," I said, looking around the room at the two piles of boxes I had packed up yesterday. "You should have called, I don't have anything ready to move yet."

"Oh yeah," he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulling out my iPhone. "You left this on my couch."

"Thanks, I was just about to start looking for it," I said, catching it when he tossed it to me. I saw Angela raise her brows at him in question, and he rolled his eyes. I chuckled, drawing both their gazes back to me in surprise.

"We aren't sleeping together," I told Angela. Lance let out a surprise cough, and I turned to him. "What? She was obviously thinking that."

"She's right," Angela agreed, and I grinned at her.

"Lance was so drunk last night that I didn't feel safe leaving him alone," I said, and he sighed.

"Really?" She asked, again with a suggestive lift of her eyebrows. "Drunk?"

"She made me go to a bar," he said, trying to defend himself now.

"You're the one who drank $70 with of alcohol in three hours," I said, shrugging as I checked my messages on my phone. There were none.

"Seriously?" They both said that at the same time, in nearly the same tone, making me grin again.

"Yeah," I said, chuckling. "I found the receipt in my pocket this morning."

"I'll pay you back for that," Lance said, rubbing the back of his neck. This was obviously not where he had thought the conversation would go, and he was uncomfortable with the subject, which I assumed was because of his friend.

"Don't worry about it, it's not like I would have even noticed if not for the receipt " I said, gesturing at the ostentatiously decorated house that was just a little small to be called a mansion. "I don't know if you've noticed but I happen to have a lot of money that I haven't worked very hard to get."

"You sound like my husband," Angela said, grinning at me. "He always whines about not needing to work."

"Sounds like a terrible burden," Lance said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Angela and I laughed.

"Hey, if you guys want some soda or something I think there is some in the kitchen," I said after a few seconds of silence. "It's not cold since the fridge hasn't run in a year or so, but you can have whatever you want. It'll just take me a few minutes to decide which furniture I want to keep."

"Are those Bierstadt prints?" Angela asked, looking at the paintings high on the foyer walls. They were set up so that they were lit by smaller lights from overhead and below, but the lights hadn't been turned on in ages.

"Originals," I said, standing back with her to look up at them. There were two in this room, both were beautiful, sweeping landscapes. I had never been into art like my mother had, but even I could appreciate beauty.

"Wow," Angela said in a breathless tone, leaning up on her toes to get a closer look.

"Are you an art enthusiast?" I asked, noticing the way her eyes roamed over the painting, taking in not only the picture, but the style as well.

"I dabble," she said, shrugging. I grinned, knowing that with the attention to detail she was currently displaying meant she did more then dabble.

"Go look in the living room," I said, gesturing to the tall archway on the left. I stayed in the Foyer with Lance, holding my finger up to tell him to wait when he made to follow Angela.

"Oh my god," I heard her say, and the grin broke over my face again and she peeked her head around the archway again. "Is this real?"

"Yep," I said, letting Lance follow her at last. "My mother was really into paintings. You know, I should really pay you for helping me move. You can have it if you want." Her mouth fell open as she stared at me in shock.

"Do you know what this is?" She asked, gesturing to the painting. I nodded. "This is an original Monet! Do you know what this is worth?" I chuckled at her obvious excitement.

"It's a bridge," Lance said, frowning at the painting and shaking his head.

"It's Le Pont Japonais, Bassin Aux Nympheas," Angela corrected, her voice soft. "It's beautiful."

"And someone who appreciates art should have it," I said, gently taking it down from the wall above the mantle. I set it softly on the couch and stood back to look at it again. The painting itself was encased in a pretty heavy frame, and the glass in front of it was practically bullet proof, my mother had insisted on it.

"I can't take this," Angela said, her voice still awed. "It's got to be worth over 12 million dollars."

"11. 4 million actually," I said, smiling. "And it's worth much more to someone who will appreciate it."

"It's a bridge," Lance repeated, his voice confused.

"You don't understand art," Angela said, her voice defensive now. "This should be in a museum."

"Where a bunch of kids will walk by on their class field trips and never think of it again? Nah," I said. "My mom spent a long time hunting this down and it needs to be somewhere where it's appreciated every day."

"You are officially my new best friend," Angela said, hugging me tightly around the shoulders.

"Ah yes, bought friendship is the best kind," I said sarcastically, then laughed. "Now I won't need to feel guilty for asking you to help me carry things."

"That is true," she said, grinning. "I have all afternoon free, so lets get you moved."

"What I don't understand is how you even have money," Lance said as I led them up the stairs. "You gave me an apartment, you gave Angela a painting, you overpay your employees."

"Who said that?" I asked, using the handrail to take some of the weight off my leg as I walked.

"One of your waitresses said you pay regular minimum wage instead of waitressing minimum wage and you don't keep any tips," Lance said, shrugging.

"The minimum wage for waitresses is less than two dollars an hour," I said, my voice dry. "Half my employees have kids and families. How are they supposed to live on two dollars an hour plus tips?"

"That's my point," Lance said. "You are too generous."

"I also have three different tenants who aren't currently paying rent, besides you. I donate to dozens of local charities," I began, listing my expenses. "I fund a homeless shelter downtown. Oh, and I own a farm in Virginia. With horses. It's very nice. And have you ever heard of the Jameston Foundation? I own that."

"But you work at a restaurant," he said, shaking his head.

"I don't think you understand the point of being filthy rich," I said, shrugging. "My parents, their parents, and their parents before them all had lots of family money, knew how to make good investments, and worked hard. I just so happen to enjoy working at a food service establishment."

"You and my husband would get along very well," Angela commented as we walked down the high ceilinged hallway to the middle, where my bedroom was.

"I get along with everybody," I said, shrugging. "I'm keeping most of the furniture in this room," I said. "Except for the wardrobe and the desk."

"Great. This should all fit on the trailer," Angela said.

"You brought a trailer?" I asked, shifting a pile of clothes from the bed to the floor to clear a space to sit. My knee was starting to really ache again.

"Well Sweets said you lived in a big house so I figured you would have a lot to move," Angela said. "You aren't planning to move everything out of here are you?"

"Definitely not," I said, shaking my head. "Actually, besides the stuff in here, most of the stuff can stay for the realtor to decide what to do with. Most of the rooms are fully furnished but they haven't been used in forever."

"Maybe you should donate it," Lance mumbled sarcastically, peeking out the window.

"I might," I said, chuckling. "I haven't decided yet. Taxes on this place are pretty high so I'm sure that not a lot of non-profit organizations would be able to afford it, and the ones that do make a profit are often corrupted. I'd need to do some research. Did you have something in mind?" I asked, keeping my voice innocent since I knew he hadn't been serious.

"I was being facetious," he said, sticking his tongue out at me. I returned the gesture, then grinned. I turned and noticed that Angela was watching the exchange intently, her eyebrows drawn in thought. I waited to see what she wanted to say, but she saw me watching her and winked.

"Lets get to work then," she said, turning. "This bed frame is probably heavy, we should take it apart."

"Actually, I have a friend who works in a moving business," I said, trying to think of a way around having to carry heavy things down the stairs with my leg feeling like it was going to fall off. "I could probably call in a favor."

"Wouldn't they have trucks too?" Angela said, tilting her head to the side.

"Probably," I said. "I haven't really thought everything through with moving, I've never done it before."

"Well I didn't actually mean for Angela to come by today when I asked either," Lance said. "I just mentioned it and she jumped into action."

"I've been stuck in the lab for days and I haven't had much to do since the girl we have now was ID'd," she said, shrugging. "This was a great excuse to leave."

"Well then how about we sit back and drink warmish soda while people who actually have muscles do the moving?" I asked, grinning. "That way you still have the excuse of helping me supervise the moving."

"Perfect," she said, grinning. "I'm pretty good at packing if you want help with that too."

"Yeah," I said, looking around the room. "I have some boxes in the garage and almost everything is sorted already."

"Great," she said. "Where's the garage? I'll grab some boxes. Gotta earn that amazing painting after all."

"I'll show you," I said, laughing. I called the person I knew with connections to a moving company, and even though I hadn't seen or spoken to him in months, he was more than willing to get some of his friends to help us move, and with a little flirting on my part, he even volunteered to help me move the stuff up into my apartment too. The call was over before we made it to the garage.

"Well I know what form of payment he'll be expecting," Angela said, walking next to me and waggling her eyebrows.

"You can get pretty far in life by flirting with the right people," I said, grinning. "And he's got a girlfriend, he'll be fine."

"Uh huh," she said as I flipped the garage lights on.

"Let me guess, you own all these too?" Lance asked from behind us.

"Technically, yeah," I said, looking over the dozen or so cars.

"Jack has one just like that, but it's blue," Angela said, looking over one of the sports cars nearby.

"This was my dad's collection. I suppose I should figure out what to do with them. It's harder to find homes for cars than it is for paintings," I said, sighing.

"Don't you have an accounts manager?" Angela asked.

"My parents did," I said. "He settled all the transferring and paperwork when my parents died, but I don't think he does cars. I'll find someone to take care of it eventually. I need to find a lawyer too, I never learned legalese, so I'll have to get someone to sort through all the things in my dads office and tell me what's important."

"I'll get you the contact info for Jack's lawyer, he's really good and I definitely owe you," Angela said.

"That would be great," I said. "We had a family lawyer but he refused to work with me after my dad died because he doesn't think women should be in control of finances at all."

"Wow," Angela commented. "What an idiot."

"Yep," I said, shrugging. He had been a good lawyer but those were replaceable most of the time. "You wouldn't happen to know of any car dealers who would know what to do with these?"

"I don't know much about cars but I'll ask around," Angela said. "You could always give them to Sweets as payment for moving. He hasn't stopped drooling over them yet."

"I'm not drooling," he muttered from behind us, and I laughed.

"He wouldn't take one if I offered," I said. "He's too prideful."

"I'm not prideful!" He protested, frowning at me.

"Do you want a car?" I asked, waving my hand over the garage.

"Absolutely not," he said, his face shocked.

"Exactly," I said, leading them to the back wall where my dad had gotten shelves installed. There were several folded cardboard boxes on the bottom shelf, and I grabbed a few, then made my way back to the house.

"What's wrong with your leg?" Angela asked, noticing my limp.

"I hit it on the coffee table this morning," I said, shifting my load of cardboard so that most of my weight was on my left side.

"No wonder you want to hire movers," Angela said, frowning. "Sweets, stop drooling over the cars and hurry up!" She called back over he shoulder. I glanced back, but Lance wasn't looking at the cars again, he was looking over the shelves, most of which were covered with tools of some sort.

"This is quite the collection," he said, picking up something I didn't recognize. "These all look brand new."

"My dad liked cars, but he wasn't very good at repairing them," I said, chuckling. "I don't think he has ever even picked any of those up. There's more in the tool box in the corner."

"Rich people," Angela said with a sigh, and I knew what she meant. My parents had both had very expensive tastes, and since they had more than enough money to supplement that kind of lifestyle, no one had thought much of buying things they would never use just for the sake of having them on hand.

"When I was little I had this friend who lived next door," I said, walking back through the house with my armful of cardboard. "Well, next door as in about half a mile that way," I nodded my head to indicate the direction. "And she went to public school, so I made my parents transfer me from private school to public school for a year. I think I probably would have turned out just like my parents; living in an overly large house and buying things I'd never need. There is a huge sociological difference between normal people and people like my family."

"Don't tell me you have a degree in sociology too," Lance said sarcastically from behind us.

"Nope. Just a bachelors," I said in an offhand tone because I knew it would annoy him. "My doctorates are in Psychology, Philosophy, and English."

"Geez," Angela said, dropping her armful of boxes onto my bedroom floor. "You don't look old enough to have that many degrees."

"I'm 27," I said, grinning at her surprised look.

"I would have guessed you'd be closer to Sweets' age," she said.

"I'm 26," he protested, frowning at Angela. She turned and patted the top of his head like a child.

"Sure you are honey," she said, and I giggled as she turned back to me. "Three doctorates and you are only 27?"

"I actually got my third one when I was 25," I said, using a roll of packing tape to build the box into a useable shape. "I'm also a little over halfway done with my fourth, but I dropped out."

"Were you going for sociology?" Angela asked as she started to go through the pile of clothes on my bed and fold them neatly.

"Nope, bio-chemical engineering," I said, grinning again. "It was my attempt to do something I was not familiar with."

"So you are one of those overly smart people, huh," Angela said, her voice sounding almost exhausted.

"Well I graduated high school when I was 14, and had my first doctorate by 18," I said, trying to keep my voice casual so I didn't sound like I was showing off, though I was quite proud of my accomplishments.

"Wow, when I was 14 the only things I was interested in were boys and art," she said, passing me a stack of folded clothes.

"I skipped all that," I said, setting the clothes into the box now at my feet. "I wasn't interested in other people until I was 18 and realized that people were nearly as interesting as philosophy. So I went into psychology."

"You are strange," she said, shaking her head. I chuckled.

"Thanks, I get that a lot," I said, and we exchanged smiles. I glanced around the room, then frowned. "Where did Lance run off to?" Angela looked around as though just realizing that he was gone.

"I have no idea," she said, shrugging.

"I should probably go find him before he gets lost. The west wing is full of twists and turns," I said, peeking my head out the door, but just then the doorbell rang. It took me a few moments to make my way down the stairs to the door, but I smiled when I opened it, not letting the pain from my leg show. "Steve!" I said, grinning at the large man in the door. "I didn't think you would be here so soon."

"Well you happened to call on my day off," he said, smiling. "And these idiots were already at my place anyway. I told them you would pay us with pizza and beer, like college all over again."

"I'll have to send someone to get beer, but pizza sounds perfect," I said, moving aside to let him and his three friends into the house. "Most of this stuff is staying here," I said as they walked into the house and looked around. "I'm just taking some of the furniture and a few boxes."

"Great," Steve said. "We have a truck outside so just point us in the direction of the heavy things, we can start with those."

"Okay, um, there's a couch in the living room," I said, leading them through the domed arch. "That one," I said, pointing it out. "And that painting is very delicate, it needs to go into Angela's pick up, its outside. "And the tv, and the tv stand, and that bookshelf, books included. That's all in here. Oh, wait, the coffee table too." The guys had already started moving things around as I spoke and they had the tv halfway out the door. I grinned. "I'll just run upstairs and finish packing some things real quick."

"Sounds good," Steve said, supervising his friends. I made my way back up the stairs, gritting my teeth. Maybe my knee was worse off than I had thought. Maybe I should go to a doctor.

"Hey Angela," I said, coming back into the room. "The movers are here so don't worry about folding things anymore, we can just throw it all in there."

"Great, that's my favorite way of packing," she said, dropping her armful of clothes into the box. It only took us ten minutes to throw everything I wanted to keep into boxes, which were then put out in the hallway.

"I just need one box for the things in my parents room that I want to keep," I said, knowing Angela had followed me when I left the room. I gathered up the papers that were still sitting across their bed, dumping them haphazardly into a box, then I added a few of the personal things from the room too, a few photographs, a pillow my mother had decorated with cross stitch, a small lamp my dad had loved. Angela helped me move it into the hallway in time for us to see Steve and his friends climbing the stairs.

"Talk about hot," Angela mumbled to me, and I chuckled.

"Aren't you married?" I murmured back to her.

"Doesn't mean I can't appreciate," she said with a grin, and I shook my head.

"In that room all I need is the bed and the dresser, then all these boxes in the hallway," I said, using my hands to indicate what I meant. "Then one box in the kitchen and that's it."

"She say's 'That's it' like that isn't a lot of stuff to carry down the stairs," one of the guys muttered. I grinned.

"I'm just trying to make sure that you all are hungry by the time the pizza gets here," I said, and they cheered up at that. I chuckled, then went with Angela down to the kitchen with a box to fill up with the few things in the kitchen I wanted to keep.

"Let me guess, you have a masters degree in cooking too?" Angela said sarcastically as I sorted through the utensils there.

"Nope, just a lowly bachelors," I said, shaking my head slowly as though I were actually sad.

"Seriously?" She asked, hands on hips.

"No," I said, chuckling. "I did take a cooking class once though. It was fun, but I prefer fast food cooking, like the kind we do at the restaurant."

"Restaurant?" Angela asked.

"Didn't Lance tell you how we met?" I asked, tilting my head to one side.

"Not really, he just said you were a friend who needed help moving," Angela said. "I've never met any of Sweets friends from outside of work so I was a little curious."

"Well we have only been friends for about a week," I said, shaking my head as I thought about that. It seemed like it had been a lot longer than a week to me. "I own a restaurant, Kate's Diner, its about three blocks west of the FBI building."

"Oh yeah, I know that place, I drive by it all the time," Angela said.

"Well you should come in some time," I said. "I'm almost always there, except for the last few days that I've been going through this house. I've been staying in an apartment above the restaurant. I think we have a pretty good menu for a fast food place."

"Well if you keep it stocked with all these attractive men I may have to come by," she said, winking as one of Steve's friends walked by the kitchen.

"I only employ two guys at the moment, neither of them are as strong as Steve and his friends," I said, chuckling. "That reminds me, I need to order pizza for them. And send someone to pick up beer."

"I'll go," Angela volunteered. "And I can take Sweets. Where is he by the way?"

"Crap," I said, frowning. "I was going to go look for him but then the movers got here. There's a gas station about a mile that way," I said, pointing as I fished my credit card from my pocket and handed it to her. "Get any kind of beer you want. And some chips, I'm sure they will eat it. I'll find Lance while you are gone."

"You are very trusting for someone who just met me," Angela said, taking the card with a raised brow.

"Well if you steal it I'll probably be able to find you again," I said, chuckling.

I called in the order for pizza as Angela went out to her truck, then I dialed Lance's number. It rang once, then went to voicemail so I hung up and tried again. After the second call, I frowned, looking around the room as though it would give me a hint as to where he was. Luckily, I spotted one of the old intercoms on the wall. They hadn't been used since before my family lived there, but maybe they were still hooked up. It took a few minutes of playing with the buttons and a couple very horrible sounds played over the speakers, but I figured it out.

"Paging Doctor Lance Sweets," I said into the intercom, trying to keep the laughter out of my voice. "Doctor Sweets, your party is waiting for you at the customer service desk, please make your way there at your earliest convince." I let go of the button for a second, then remembered that he probably had no idea how to get back to the front doors. "Also, turn your damn phone on or I'm sending out the search dogs." After another few minutes, I dialed again, but his phone was still off. Maybe it was dead and he really didn't know where he was. The house was pretty large, and it was easy to get turned around in the different wings. Or maybe the speaker system was only working in this part of the house.

"Lost your friend?" Steve asked from behind me.

"Yeah he wandered off and now I'm not sure how to find him," I said, frowning.

"What, no actual search dogs?" He asked, chuckling.

"Nah," I said. "We had a dog once but she would have made a terrible search dog, she was very lazy."

"Don't all these castle houses have security camera's and stuff?" He asked, glancing around.

"Actually, that's a great idea," I said, walking off toward my fathers study where he had kept his computer. "I don't know the password but it shouldn't be hard to figure out." Steve followed behind me, then spent his time looking around the room as the computer booted up. I located the security program quickly, but it took quite a few guesses for me to figure out the password. Finally, after another guess, the program booted up and I grinned. "I'm in! I feel like we should be robbing a bank or something."

"I think it's easier to hack into your own security system then it is to hack into a banks," Steve said, picking up a carving of a bear from one of the book shelves.

"Probably, but it's still fun," I said, clicking through the different hallway and outdoor cameras. "Oh, Angela is back," I said, spotting her truck on the front gate camera. "And the pizza guy is right behind her. Can you go meet them while I figure out where Lance is at please?"

"Sure thing," Steve said. "The guys should be done loading your things by now too so I'll round them up."

"Thanks," I said, clicking through a few more cameras. Most of the lights in the house were turned on by motion activators, so I automatically skipped the dark ones. Finally I found Lance walking the wrong way down the third floor of the south wing. I took a moment to contemplate the fastest way there, then my knee gave a particularly strong jolt of pain and I sighed, turning the computer screen so I would be able to see it from the speaker system by the door. This one was much easier to figure out than the one in the kitchen had been, it was newer. Maybe my parents had actually used the things to communicate while I was away at school.

"Lance, can you hear me?" I spoke into the system, making sure that I was holding down the proper buttons for the south wing. He jerked around and I couldn't help but laugh into the speaker. "I found out on the security cameras, I'm going to direct you back this way." He held up his hands in a thumbs up gesture. "Okay, turn around the way you just came and walk all the way to the end of the hall, then turn right." I waited as he did as I had said. "Okay, to your right there is a door, I think it's painted blue, though that might be on the forth floor. Anyway, go through that door, and about ten feet in you will see a staircase to your left, take that down one floor." I lost sight of him for a few moments as he walked down the stairs, then found him again on the next floor. "Great, now go through those double doors there, then turn left and walk until you see a bunch of giant creepy portraits on the walls." I watched as he began to walk. "How did you even make it to the south wing? Those doors used to be locked." He threw his hands up in an 'I have no fucking idea' motion. "This is like one of those blindfolded trust exercises they make you do your first day of college. I could be leading you into the basement or something and you would never know." I heard laughing coming from the front hall and realized that I had been pressing more than one of the buttons on the speaker and the others could probably hear me. I saw Lance stop walking on the screen and sighed.

"I was kidding, keep walking," I said, but he shook his head, gesturing to something off the screen of the camera. "I can't see what you are looking at," I said, clicking through some of the other cameras. "Is your phone dead?" He nodded. "Okay, um, if you can't go that way, I think there is a back staircase a little way's back, but it's going to be dusty." He turned around, and walked back the way he had come. "Okay, stop, turn to your right, there should be a sliding panel door in the wall, there are stairs behind it." I could see him fumble with the wall for a moment, shaking his head. "This house is super old, it used to be one of the servant stairways," I explained. "At the bottom, go to the right and there should be a courtyard type place. If you walk straight across it you'll be in this wing again. Just follow that hallway back to the front door." He gave me another thumbs up and I watched on the camera until he had reentered the building, then went to meet him.

Angela and the other guys were sitting around the kitchen table eating and they all laughed when I came into the room.

"We were just talking about turning this place into a giant haunted mansion," Angela said, chuckling.

"It would work pretty well since the speaker system seems to still be working," I said, sitting down at the table. I really wasn't hungry by this point, my knee was hurting too much to consider putting food in my stomach, but I pulled a piece toward me anyway.

"Your house is ridiculous," Lance said as he entered the room. "What on earth could anyone possibly need that many rooms for?"

"Well they used to house the servants and staff before we lived here, back when slavery was a thing," I said, shrugging. "When I was little I had a nanny who's family lived here, and we used to have a cook who lived here too. My mom had a cleaning lady but I don't think she lived here. I'm not sure though. Most of those rooms are empty, except for the ones in the west wing. My mom's sister used to stay there once in a while but she stopped coming over before I was born. What was on the second floor that you couldn't walk that way?"

"There were locked doors," Lance said, shrugging.

"It's weird that the hall doors are locked up there but not wherever you wandered to get to the south wing," I said, frowning again.

"I just went to look at the portraits in the hall, then I got turned around and couldn't figure out which way I came from," Lance said. "The lights turn off automatically."

"Yeah they are on sensors," I said. Everyone was silent for a bit as they ate, but it only took the five guys about ten minutes to consume all five pizzas, and then they were ready to go help me move into the apartment. I locked the door, and this time the gate too, as we left. Angela went home to put up her new painting, promising that we would have lunch together some time.

It took the guys even less time to carry everything from their truck to my apartment, and within half an hour they were gone, leaving just me and Lance.

"Thanks for all your help today," I said, flopping down onto my couch with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin.

"Is your knee still bothering you?" He asked as I took two of the tiny pills. I nodded and began rolling up my pant leg. The cut was healed over pretty well, but the skin around it was still bruised. "Maybe you should go to a doctor."

"I thought about it today, but I don't need stitches so I don't think there is much they could do," I said, then patted my pants back into place and got up, intending to start sorting through some of the boxes now crowding up my living room.

"You shouldn't be up if your knee hurts that bad," he said, stepping forward as though he expected me to fall over. There was a little bit of an awkwardness between the two of us now, and I frowned, wondering if maybe he didn't want to be around me now that he knew I had nightmares. Or maybe he was just awkward because we had fallen asleep together on his couch for a few hours. He hadn't taken a seat yet, but was standing in the living room, arms crossed. I took that as a bad sign, since his usual stance was relaxed with hands in his pockets. Crossed arms was defensive, wary. I disappeared into the kitchen for a moment to grab a frozen bag of peas, then went back and settled myself onto the couch, putting the cool vegetables on my knee, which immediately felt better.

"Are you going to stand there being awkward all night?" I asked, relaxing now that the throbbing in my knee was fading. "Or do you want to tell me why you're being defensive so we can get over it?"

"I'm not being defensive," he said, but he uncrossed his arms and changed his stance. I raised one eyebrow and he sighed, seeming to give up, then slumped into a seat on the other end of the couch. "Are you really going to sell that house?" I gave him another look to let him know that I knew he was purposefully changing the subject.

"I don't want to live there," I said, my voice even so that he would know I wasn't lying. Usually I wouldn't put so much effort into my body language, but I knew that now that I had pointed out his uncomfortableness, he would be noticing my tells. "It's a huge house that shouldn't be empty. It's a waste to keep it when I have no intention of going back."

"I saw the portraits though," he said, relaxing a little more when I went along with his topic change. "That house has been in your family for generations."

"Yeah, all the way back to slavery," I said, shaking my head. "It was probably built by slaves. Even if it wasn't, why should I keep it just because my great grandparents lived there?"

"Family is important," he said, his voice nonchalant but with an undertone I didn't recognize. Almost… bitterness?

"I don't have any family," I said, shrugging. "If I did I'd give it to them. I don't know if you've noticed this before, but all the rich people in DC seem to have a lot of bad luck. My family is just me. The Macnamara's are the next richest family up from mine, and they are down to just the two kids in that family, neither is married, and then the Cantilever Group is down to one heir now too I think. Rich families always end up with one person left to carry on the name. I'm not going to be doing that so there's no point in keeping the house."

He was silent for a moment, thinking over my reasoning.

"Is there anything else you would like to change the subject to before I get you to answer my first question?" I asked when the silence drew on. He sighed.

"We've only known each other for eight days," he said, and I wasn't sure if he was changing the subject or actually answering the question.

"Yes, I was thinking of that earlier today," I said, nodding. "Maybe it's just because I have no other friends outside of work, but it feels like we have been friends for longer than that."

"Yeah," he said, though I wasn't sure if he was agreeing or thinking of something else now. I glanced over at him, saw his frown, and sighed, then turned so I was sitting cross legged on the couch, facing him.

"What's wrong? Should I refer to you as an acquaintance rather than a friend?" He snorted at that, then shook his head.

"I don't have any friends outside of work either, besides the Jeffersonian's," he began, and I nodded. I had guessed as much, since he hadn't mentioned anyone else in the time I had known him. "And even with those people it took me a very long time to be able to trust them."

"Oh," I said, finally realizing what he was talking about. "You were thinking about it because I called your... detour a trust exercise." He nodded. "Look, it's fine if you don't trust me. Actually that would be the most likely response, since I guess, with all said, you don't actually know me that well. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worrying about not trusting you," he said, then hesitated. "I'm worrying because I do trust you. Sort of."

"I don't see why that's a bad thing," I said, tilting my head to one side to watch him. He was staring at the celling now, his head tilted back against the back of the couch.

"It's not like me to trust people I just met," he said. "I'm just… second guessing my judgment skills."

"Well that makes sense," I said, and he looked at me, surprised. "I mean, I'm technically a suspect in a murder aren't I? You have no reason to trust me at all, and if you end up trusting me and it turns out that I actually did murder someone, you won't trust your intuition on future cases you work. Hey, now that I think about it, shouldn't you not be spending time with me, if I'm being investigated?"

"I know you didn't do it," he said, shrugging. "You were with me when that girl died. And yeah, intuition. I don't _think_ you did it."

"Would you like me to play shrink and tell you why you trust me?" I asked, and he shrugged again, his eyes back on the celling. "Well, first of all, I happened to be the first person to try to cheer you up after a potentially devastating event in your life, which means that you feel as though you can rely on me to do so in the future. I'm small framed and quite short, which means that subconsciously, you don't see me as a threat. I've managed to keep you from harm while you were in an inebriated state, and you fell asleep with me still in your living area, which means that you know that I won't do anything terrible to you when I have the chance to do so. Hmm… I think I probably remind you of someone else you know that you have trusted in the past. Not a sibling, since I guessed before that you didn't have any. Maybe your mother? Or a babysitter you liked? I'm just guessing now, but those are a few reasons."

"You would make a good psychologist," he said, his voice a mumble as he frowned up at my celling. "You are good at inferring the reasons behind peoples actions."

"It's okay if you don't want to trust me right now," I said, leaning against the back of the couch. "If your intuition tells you to trust me, you can just ignore it until you want to trust me. But I can promise that you have no reason not to trust me. I haven't lied to you in the time I've known you, I haven't done anything illegal, and I don't think I've done anything to emotionally harm you either. If that's not enough for you to go off of, then that's fine."

"You are an odd person," he said in response. "Most people would be upset if someone told them that they didn't want to trust them."

"Most people don't spend all their free time rationalizing out other peoples actions," I said, smiling against the fabric of the couch as I rested the side of my head against it.

"I guess," he said, still not sounding as though he was less upset.

"What's wrong?" I asked, tilting my head up from the couch. "Is something else bothering you?"

"Did you have any siblings?" He asked.

"Nope, just me," I said. "Though the nanny I had when I was three had a son who was a few years older than I was. She never let us play together though. I think she was worried that if I were to be hurt accidentally she would be fired. She left when I was five though, so other than that there weren't any other kids in the house."

"What did you do while your parents were at work then?" He asked, and I settled back into the couch.

"My mother was a writer for a long time. She didn't start teaching until I was eight or so," I said. "She picked me up from school and dropped me off in the morning. When she started working with my father at the university, I stayed at my private school's daycare until they were done."

"And you graduated high school when you were fourteen?" He asked.

"Well, I was almost fifteen," I admitted. "If I had waited another year to graduate I would have had a much harder time getting into Harvard. They like having 'child prodigy's' attend there, but they are more likely to accept you when you are under sixteen."

"So your parent's just sent you off to college when you were fourteen?" He asked, shaking his head a little.

"I begged them," I said, smiling. "And they made me come back so that I could go to my high school's prom with all the other kids who were supposed to be in my graduating class. I even had a date, but he stood me up and I ended up staying home anyway. It was more fun though. My dad put on one of his old records and we danced around the living room until I wasn't upset anymore, and then my mom let me eat as many of her cookies as I wanted. And then we stayed up late watching movies on the lifetime channel on tv."

"I was adopted," Lance began, and I smiled to myself. Sometimes to find out something about someone you had to tell them about yourself first. It was something my mother had always said, and it seems as though she was correct. "When I was eight, and I was in the system for two years before that. My birth parents were… drug addicts I think, or maybe alcoholics. I just remember that they weren't good people. And the first few foster homes I was put in were not very nice places. I don't really remember them very well. But my parents, my adoptive parents, they were really great people."

"I'm sure they were," I said, smiling again. He glanced at me now, eyebrow raised in question. "I just mean that it must have been very difficult for you as a child, but you turned out very well, in my opinion. They must have been very understanding and patient."

"They were," he said, a soft smile forming over his face at the memory. "If I hadn't missed so much school in the beginning of my life I would have graduated early, like you did. As it was I still managed to graduate with other people my age, even though I had missed first and second grade. They passed on though."

"You told me. It was a few years ago," I said, my voice soothing. "They were elderly."

"I don't know why you remember that, I think I mentioned it in passing," he said, shaking his head.

"I don't forget things," I said. "I can recall anything that has happened to me since birth if I focus hard enough."

"Yeah, with your memory thing," Lance said, his voice lighter than it had been during our conversation before. He must have found whatever reason to trust me he had been looking for before. "I've gotta say, that really would be useful to have."

"Yeah, it is at times," I said, my voice growing a little darker. "But it's not so nice when I want to sleep and can't get past the images of all the not so pleasant things I've happened to see in my lifetime. It's also not pleasant to be able to perfectly recall every embarrassing thing I've done. I think that being able to forget things is something that all humans should be able to do, with the world we live in."

"You're right," he said, nodding. "Some of the cases I've worked on I've been glad to forget about. Oh, that's what you were talking about this morning, about your nightmares."

"I wasn't sure you remembered that, you were not very awake at the time," I said.

"I forgot until just now, actually," he said, then frowned. "Nightmares like that are uncommon. Most people grow out of that when they are children. Is it a side affect of a medical condition?" He asked in a curious voice, then shook his head as though realizing how that question had sounded. "I didn't mean-"

"It's fine," I said. "Uncommon things are what make life interesting."

"I guess," he said. "Sometimes I get so caught up in learning about something that I offend people."

"I'm not easily offended," I said, grinning. "The night terrors started when I was seven and I saw a kid at school beat up until he passed out. Everyone thought he was dead and started freaking out until the teachers came by. He was fine and all, but I would dream about him being dead after that, or about the others beating me up, or someone else up, and it sort of escalated until I was dreaming other things that always ended up with me waking up in a panic. I don't remember all the dreams, just a few of them. The psychiatrist said it was a side affect of the eidetic memory and gave me medication to take for it but… I really dislike the medication."

"Why?" Lance asked.

"It was fine when I was little," I said, tucking my feet up so I could wrap my arms around my legs. The frozen bag of peas was pretty much completely thawed now, but the coolness still felt nice, so I left it on my knee. "It doesn't help the dreams, just the reactions to them. When you have a nightmare and wake up in a panic, but then are unable to move at all because of the medication, it doesn't really help your state of panic, it makes it worse. I prefer waking up with a couple bruises from flailing in my sleep to being completely paralyzed."

"It makes sense," he said, nodding. "I wouldn't take it either."

"That's because you like to be in control of a situation at all times," I said, smiling as I rested my head on my left knee. "Giving up control to a medication like that would go against your nature."

"You think you are so smart," he said jokingly, and I nodded.

"I'm not wrong am I?" I asked. "I'm guessing it comes from not being able to be in control of anything when you were younger."

"You aren't wrong," he said, then sighed. "You know a lot more about me than what I've told you."

"Well the same goes for you about me," I said. "I'm sure there are some things you've guessed about me that I didn't tell you."

"Well you've confirmed most of my guesses," he said.

"That's because I'm an open book," I said, grinning. "I'll answer just about anything you want to ask. I trust you too you know."

"Why?" He asked, confused. "Intuition?"

"I trust just about everybody until they give me a reason not to," I said. "I have a three strikes system. After three times of breaking my trust, you don't get it back. Unless I have a very good reason."

"That's… sort of a weird philosophy to have," he said, thinking it over.

"It helps me to remember to forgive people for things that I would otherwise hold a grudge against them for," I said. "And it helps me to not be overly trusting of people."

"I still think you are overly trusting," he said, his voice joking to let me know he wasn't serious, then he frowned. "Have I earned a strike yet?"

"Have you done something that is worth of earning a strike?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well I'm technically investigating you for murder," he said. "I'm on that case."

"That's your job though," I said. "It doesn't count. Unless you are tampering with evidence so that I get accused or whatever it is you guys do."

"I'm not," he protested, sitting forward quickly, then realized I was joking and sat back down.

"Then you have no strikes," I said.

"Has anyone ever gotten to three strikes?" He asked curiously.

"Plenty," I said, nodding. "A few employees, for stealing or drugs or something like that. A couple old tenants, for rent and stuff. Mostly lying. My second room mate from college. My science teacher from 11th grade. My would be date to prom. Hmm… a handful of other uninteresting people."

"So what's a good enough reason to get a strike against me?" He asked, grinning.

"Mostly strikes are given for lying," I said, smiling back. "Most of the time, if I'm given a plausible explanation for something, I let it go. For example, I have a girl in one of my buildings who's been late on rent for two months. When I asked her about it, she explained that her financial aid for schooling had fallen through and she was working on getting it back, so I told her not to worry about being evicted. My room mate from college did much the same thing, only she went about it the wrong way. She borrowed some money from me then tried convincing me that she had already paid it back. That coupled with the fact that she slept with two of my, at the time, boyfriends, gave her a third strike."

"You lent her money after she slept with two of your boyfriends?" Lance asked, frowning.

"Yes," I said, shrugging. "She apologized after I caught her. Those times too could have been avoided if she had just explained to me why she had decided to go behind my back."

"You would have forgiven her for that?" He asked, his voice slightly disbelieving now.

"I would have been angry," I said, shrugging. "But I would have forgiven her eventually. Besides, she did me a favor, sort of. If she hadn't slept with my boyfriend I might never have realized he was the type who would cheat on someone."

"That makes sense," he said, nodding.

"I'm beginning to think you say 'That makes sense' when I say something that confuses you," I said, grinning. He chuckled.

"Well it does make sense," he said. "But no one really thinks like that. It's too rational."

"You work with the Jeffersonian," I said, surprised. "Surely there must be some people there with high IQ's. People with high IQ's tend to be more rational because they work off of facts and proof, not feelings."

"You are right again," he said, shaking his head. "I guess I just don't put you into the same group as them in my mind because you are more… normal I guess."

"I will take that as a compliment," I said, smiling. "But I get what you mean. When I was at school I would sometimes become so distracted by something I was working on or reading that I would forget to do normal things, like talk to people, or eat."

"You would probably fit in well at the Jeffersonian," he said, chuckling. "Except Dr. Brennan doesn't like psychology, and I doubt she would put much stock into philosophy either."

"Well then it's a good thing that I don't need Dr. Brennan's validation to have a sense of self worth," I said, watching the now nearly completely set sun casting shadows over the wall. It was silent for a moment as the long day began to wear on me. "Can I ask how Marlene's case is going?"

"I'm not supposed to discuss an ongoing investigation," Lance replied automatically, as though he had said it a hundred times before.

"Okay," I said. "I figured that would be the answer. It's just such a shame. She was so young."

"We have a suspect," he said, his voice hesitant.

"Yeah, me," I said, rolling my eyes even though he had gone back to looking at the ceiling.

"No, a different one," he said. "We are questioning him tomorrow. I think… well, I don't think you will like what we found. We are about 90% sure we found the murderer."

"Don't tell me anything else," I said, shaking my head. "I don't want you to get in trouble at work or anything."

"Thanks," he said, smiling. "Hey, could I ask a favor of you?"

"Sure," I said, a little surprised. Lance didn't really seem like the type to ask for favors form people, especially not from people that he wasn't sure he wanted to trust of not.

"Well, it's actually for work, so not really a favor because I guess we could get a warrant. Booth wanted to get a warrant," he said, rambling a little out of nervousness.

"Lance, it's fine," I said, interrupting him. "Whatever you need, you don't have to get a warrant for."

"I need a master key to the buildings you rent," he said, his voice low. I frowned for a moment, then realized why he would need a key for work.

"The killer is someone who lives in one of my buildings?" I asked, scanning through my memories of all the people I rented to. None of them had seemed like killers at the time. "Never mind, don't answer that. Yeah, I have a few different keys though, for the different buildings." I got up from the couch and stretched my leg before walking over to the only locked drawer in the place, then used my house keys that I had tossed on the counter earlier to unlock it. "Here," I said, coming back to the front of the couch. "They are all marked with the addresses." I said, handing him the key ring with eleven different keys on it.

"Thanks Kate," he said, his voice apologetic as he stood to accept them. Suddenly we were standing very close together, and I took a step back out of instinct, forgetting the coffee table was behind me. I probably let out some sort of embarrassing squeak as I fell, but Lance managed to grab my arm and pull me back up, laughing.

"Thanks," I said, smiling wryly at his amusement.

"You seem to have a lot of bad luck with coffee tables," he said, explaining his humor. I laughed too then, because he was right. "I need to get going," he said after a moment, and I realized we were still standing kind of close together, so I took a seat on the couch.

"Okay," I said, smiling. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Probably," he said. "It's regulation to tell people they are no longer murder suspects when we catch the bad guys."

"Well good luck then," I said as he pulled the door open.

"Thanks," he said, smiling as he pulled the door shut. As soon as he wasn't there to lecture me about being on my knee when it still hurt, I was up and sorting through the boxes of things I had brought over.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I was only able to sleep for a couple hours, at the most, which resulted in my being awake before sunrise once again. I had spent a lot of time the night before thinking about who the murderer might be, which resulted in unpleasant dreams about Marlene again. Instead of staying cooped up in my apartment, I went down to the diner to work, which turned out to be a good idea, since it kept my mind off the case that Lance was working on. The night person who had been scheduled to get off work at six was glad to be sent home at five instead, and I took over her post. I probably would have sent the cook home too, it was never so busy between five and six that I couldn't work it alone, but as it was a Sunday morning, I was expecting a few of the before church crowd that we usually got.

My hair was behaving much more nicely today, and I was able to wear it in a simple bun without a hat, which was nice, because it was really starting to get hot outside during the daytime and a hat would just be uncomfortable in that weather.

The morning passed by in a blur of customers, orders, and a couple joking comments from my employees, but they could tell my mind was elsewhere so no one really tried to keep up a conversation for too long.

In fact, every time I had a spare second, my mind would start thinking about the case and whether or not they had caught the murderer.

I had to wait until nearly four in the afternoon to find out, but finally, Lance and his coworker, Agent Booth, came into the diner. It was a slow moment, after the end of lunch rush but before most people started thinking about dinner.

"Kaitlin James?" Booth asked, though I knew that he probably remembered who I was. "If like to apologise for being a little rude last time we spoke."

"Oh you mean when you accused me of murder?" I asked, my tone joking. I was in a much better mood today than I had been yesterday, partially because my knee was feeling much better, and partially because I sort of liked Agent Booth. He seemed like, given the chance, he probably would have a good sense of humor. Or at least be fun to tease.

"Uh, yeah that," he said, shifting in his feet. "We are here to tell you that you are no longer a suspect and are therefore free to leave town of you want to. Also, as the landlord, we are required to inform you that you that we have arrested one of your tenants."

"Which one?" I asked, my voice serious again.

"Albert Stevenson," Lance said when Booth was distracted with looking around the place. "His apartment is currently a crime scene but we should be cleared out in a few days. I'll let you know when we are done with it." I nodded, frowning. I remembered Albert, of course, but we hadn't spoken since I had first rented the place out to him. At the time he had been recently released from a two year drug related jail sentence, and he had promised to stay clean.

"Was he selling her drugs?" I asked, feeling a little responsible now.

"Not her," Booth said. "Her friend Mary. Marlene said that Mary was trying to get clean but she owed her dealer, Stevenson, a lot of money so Marlene went there to try to pay him off so her friend could stop selling his drugs for him."

"Mary Anders?" I asked, frowning. She was another one of my tenants, in a different building. She was one of the people who had been late on rent a few times. And she was currently on her second strike from me.

"She really was getting clean of drugs," Lance said, hearing the disappointed tone in my voice. "We did a blood test, she hadn't had anything in her system for at least a month now."

"Hm," I said, thinking the situation through. I would have to give her a chance to explain herself to me. If she didn't, that would be strike three. If she did… I would give her another chance. If she really was trying to get clean and lead a better life, I didn't want to kick her out of her apartment. While I was thinking, my body went through its usual movements of pouring coffee for Lance and locating a pen to take orders, and before I realized what I was doing, I had set the coffee on the counter in front of him. He glanced at Booth, who had begun to walk around and read the various old fashioned signs hanging around the place, then he sat at the counter and accepted his coffee.

"I don't think you should kick her out," Lance said, and I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, my mouth twitching up in amusement. "Sorry, I just figured you were thinking about it."

"She has another chance from me," I said, shrugging. "Why don't you think I should evict her? I have a clause about drugs in my lease contracts, it's my right to kick her out."

"She was very upset that her drug use got her best friend killed," Lance said. "I think that is a good motivator to keep her off drugs. If you kick her out she might think that the only way to make money is to go back to selling drugs. I'm sure she had some other source besides our killer."

"I will talk to her and make a decision then," I said, leaning onto the counter beside him as he blew over his hot coffee. "Is your Agent friend going to be more pleasant now?"

"He might be," Lance said, covering his smile by taking a sip of coffee. "He has a thing against rich people but he is more likely to be nice if you happen to have some pie. Preferably apple."

"I do have some, actually," I said, grinning. "Are you guys staying or do you have to go back to work?"

"We will need to get back," he said, sounding as though he regretted not being able to stay, which made me smile. It was nice having someone in my life who actually enjoyed my presence for more than the fact that I was a good waitress. "We will have a lot of paperwork for the case that will need to be finished tonight."

"Alright, to-go pie then," I said, smiling. "I'll be right back." I went to the dessert cooler and pulled out the newly baked apple pie. I put two pieces into individual cardboard to-go containers, then got a couple to-go coffees ready too, just in case they wanted some.

"Thanks," Lance said as I slid the containers onto the counter in front of him. His smile really was addictive, so I smiled back, just as Booth came over.

"What's this?" Booth asked, gesturing to the things on the counter.

"I make it a habit to be nice to people who have been rude to me in the past as proof that I don't hold grudges," I said, keeping my face straight. Lance ruined it by snorting, which made my mouth break into a smile against my will. "I heard you like apple pie, and I think we have a very good recipe here so I wanted you to try it. Call it self promotion." Booth narrowed his eyes for a moment, the shrugged and picked up both containers, then turned and walked out of the building. "Is that a good sign?" I asked, tilting my head as Lance grabbed the two coffees.

"Yeah, I think so," he said. "Thanks for this Kate. I'll see you later."

"Bye," I said, grinning as he ran after Booth.

* * *

It was another three days before I saw or heard from Lance again, and I couldn't help but feel a little hurt that he hadn't wanted to hang out before then. I decided I was probably over reacting because I was new to having a friend outside of work or school, so I didn't try to push anything. Besides, he was probably still upset about him and Daisy breaking up. I knew from experience that it was difficult to suddenly spend so much time apart from someone that you had previously spent a lot of time with. For some reason, I was also finding it difficult to spend time away from Lance, which I put down to the fact that it had been a long time since I'd had a real friend, and the fact that I was hardly sleeping. I didn't sleep that much to begin with. I only really needed about four to six hours a night to function properly, but for the past week I had been getting one hour at the most. It was to the point now that I was considering taking the medication I had been given, even though it always made me freak out when I woke up and couldn't move.

I had accomplished a lot in the last three days. I had talked to Mary, who had told me the truth about everything. Lance had been right, she really was torn up about Marlene's death. We had ended up talking for almost an hour, and I think that by the time I left, she liked me a little more. Well, maybe she was just grateful that I wasn't going to evict her. I had resolved to actually make random visits to my buildings as I had said I would in my rent contracts, but I never really did. I'd start doing that now though, especially after finding out that Albert had been selling drugs out of his apartment for the entire time he had lived there.

I sighed to myself. I usually regarded myself as a rational person. I tried not to let my gut instincts or my emotions influence my judgment of people, but today I had just been annoyed with everything. To the point where I had snapped at one of the cooks for not doing her job correctly. I had felt bad about it afterwords and apologized, but I had taken that as my cue to leave work.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" The voice interrupted my thoughts. I had taken refuge on one of the benches that lined the sidewalks in front of the older 'Touristy' shops that also lined this street. I hadn't made it too far down the street before realizing I didn't have the energy to walk my usual few laps around the block that I normally walked when I was upset about something. I rubbed my eyes before looking up to respond to Lance.

"Hey," I said. "What are you doing here?"

"I just got done with work for the day and I saw you sitting here as I was driving by," he said, not taking a seat on the bench, but rather standing off to the side. "What's wrong?" He asked, probably noticing how tired I looked. I had certainly noticed it this morning. Enough so that I had put on a little foundation to cover the bags under my eyes. It hadn't done as good of a job as I would have liked it to, since Kathy had commented on it already that day.

"Nice suit," I said, avoiding the question. "What, did you decide to bake cookies?" I asked, noticing the white powder that was all over the front of his clothing. It looked as though he had tried to brush off most of it, but had instead rubbed it in further.

"No," he said, rolling his eyes, but he smiled a little anyway. "We had to question a suspect today who was not happy that we showed up at her house while she was cooking." I chuckled, getting to my feet.

"Let me have that jacket when we get home," I said. "It's hard to get flour out of clothes when they are 'Dry Clean Only'," I said, walking with him toward the apartments. "I happen to know how to do it though. It was one of the only useful things I learned in college."

"Can't I just use a wet towel?" Lance asked, following me through the door to the stairs.

"Well you can," I said, surpassing a laugh. "If you want to completely ruin that suit. Thats a cotton wool blend right? It'll shrink and be ruined if you get it wet."

"Oh," he said. "I usually just take them to the dry cleaners," he said, shrugging.

"That is very 'Rich Privilage' of you to say," I said, grinning as he followed me to my apartment.

"That did sound kind of snooty," he admitted, shrugging the jacket off to hand to me. "There's a dry cleaner downtown that gives discounts to FBI agents. I always go there. A lot of agents do since everyone is required to wear suits."

"I guess around here dry cleaning would be a good business to get into," I said, pulling out a lint roller from one of my kitchen drawers, then getting a paper towel just the slightest bit damp. The trick to flour was the just get it a little tiny bit wet, then use the lint roller to pick up the flakes without putting too much pressure on it.

"I suppose," he said, taking a seat on the couch as I worked. I cast around for another subject to keep him from noticing that I hadn't answered his earlier questions. "So you have a new case? Is it another murder one? I don't know how you can work murder cases all the time. I'd lose my faith in humanity if I did that."

"This one's actually a drug bust, not a murder," he said, frowning at me as I used the coffee table to set his jacket out on once I had gotten most of the flour off it. It was just a little bit damp in the places I had used the paper towel, and I was really really hoping I hadn't ruined it. "Kate, are you okay? You look like you are getting sick."

"I'm just a bit tired," I said, taking a seat not he couch and folding my legs underneath me. "I haven't been sleeping well."

"Still?" He asked. "I thought maybe you wold stop having dreams about Marlene after we solved her murder. Usually once you stop thinking about something, you stop dreaming about it."

"I'm not dreaming about Marlene," I said, sighing. "Sometimes I just go through this stage of insomnia where I can't sleep well for a few weeks."

"That is not healthy," he said.

"What, no psychological insights to that comment?" I asked, surprised. Usually he would immediately launch into something he had read or studied about whatever the subject was at the time. I took a closer look at him, then tilted my head to one side. "Are you okay? You look tired too."

"I'm fine, it's just this case," he said, shrugging. "And I guess sometimes I forget why I wanted to become a psychologist. I wanted to help people, but all I'm doing is giving approximations of what kind of horrible person could commit a crime."

"But that is helping people," I said, though I knew what he meant. There was a difference between reading people in an interrogation and helping someone overcome their emotional struggles by talking them through it.

"I just feel like I should be doing more to help," he said, leaning forward on the couch so that his elbows were resting on his knees.

"Don't you have sessions with people in the FBI?" I asked, leaning back into the couch.

"Yeah," he said, sighing. "It just doesn't feel like enough. I should be working with kids, thats why I became a psychologist in the first place."

"I think you are too young for a midlife crisis," I said, trying to make a joke. "Maybe if you feel like you aren't living up to your potential you should take some time off from work to think about what you want to do."

"Maybe," he said, then sat back with another sigh. "I'm just annoyed at this case I think. Every person we question gives us three more names but we can't get enough evidence to keep any of them on any charges at all. I can't figure out who's lying or not when I talk to them. It's just… frustrating."

"You will figure it out," I said, my voice soft. "You are very determined and also a bit stubborn."

"I don't know if that's a compliment or not," he said, smiling a little now.

"It's a good thing," I said. "It means you don't give up when things get difficult."

"Well thanks," he said. "Your faith in me is based off only knowing me for a week though."

"Yeah well I'm pretty good at guessing," I said, smiling.

"How long did you sleep last night?" He asked after a moment of silence. My eyes had been drifting halfway closed as I stared blankly at the tv.

"Um, I don't know exactly," I said, not answering the question.

"Best guess?" He asked, frowning over at me.

"Maybe an hour?" I said, my voice turning the words into a question.

"And the night before that?" He asked, frowning deeper.

"I dunno," I said, shrugging. "Less than an hour. The same for the few nights before that too."

"You really need to sleep," he said. "Without proper sleep your body becomes overly stressed leaving you more susceptible to sickness and eventually it will shut down completely, forcing you to sleep."

"I know," I said, shifting so I could wrap my arms around my folded up legs, my usual position when sitting on the couch. "I just can't sleep, and then I start feeling like if I'm going to be awake I may as well be doing something, so I get up and unpack or go downstairs and work."

"Maybe you should take that medication that knocks you out," he said, frowning still. "What is it again?"

"Valium," I said, shuddering at the thought. "I really don't want to take it. I always end up panicking when I wake up."

"They gave you Valium for sleeping?" He asked. "Isn't that a bit strong?"

"We tried a bunch of different things when I was little," I explained. "Valium had the least severe side affects." He thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.

"I don't blame you for not wanting to take it. I was on something similar once when I was younger and I hated it," he said. I nodded though he wasn't looking at me and probably didn't see. I thought for a few minutes, trying to come up with a solution to my sleep problems without having to result to taking drugs. In college I had gone through many phases of not sleeping often, but it had been useful there, I could just study instead of sleep and no one would question it because classes were very difficult at times and everyone pulled all nighters at some point or another.

"Hey," I said, getting an idea. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Maybe," he said, looking over at me curiously.

"Could you sleep with me?" I asked, remembering that when I was little, having someone there with me when I woke up had usually made me calm down faster. I hated to ask, but he also looked tired so I figured that he would probably fall asleep quickly anyway. I glanced at his face, noticing his surprised slightly scared look, then laughed when I thought back over what I had said. "Wow that came out badly. I meant that in a totally not sexual way. I just meant that if I take my medication to go to sleep, it helps when someone else is there when I wake up."

"Oh," he said, laughing awkwardly. "Wouldn't it worry you more that there is someone in your house with you when you wake up when you are unfamiliar with that?"

"I'll take that as concern and not a comment on my personal life," I said, grinning. "No actually, it doesn't. I've always slept better when someone else was also in the room. I'm not sure why." He looked a little hesitant, but then shrugged.

"It's an odd way to return a favor but I guess I owe you," he said. "And that reminds me, I have these for you." He fished through the pockets on his suit jacket, then pulled out my keyring of master keys for my buildings that I had lent him a couple days ago.

"Don't make it sound so terrible,"I said, laughing. "My bed is like a hundred times more comfortable than the one in your apartment.

"I didn't mean to make it sound horrible," he protested, trying to make sure I wasn't offended.

"It's fine," I said, chuckling. "It was just a suggestion, don't feel obligated. I'm not even sure it'll help."

"No I'll do it," he said, his vice still hesitant a little. "It just... Well I don't sleep well with other people nearby. Well, I mean I don't sleep badly, the opposite actually, but I tend to... Never mind."

"Oh I get it," I said, laughing. "You're a cuddler. It's fine my bed is giant. We can make a pillow barrier. It'll be just like sleepovers in grade school."

"Great," he said, still standing awkwardly. "I'll be right back. I know it's still kinda early but you really look like you need the sleep." He disappeared through the door before I had a chance to say anything else, so instead I went through my nighttime routine of brushing my teeth and finding some sleep wear. I had arranged some pillows in a row down the middle of my bed, which was wide enough to leave a lot of room in either side for both of us.

I spent a few moments locating my pills and some water, then I started to panic. What if the medication made my dreams worse? What if I still freaked out when I woke up? Was I inconveniencing Lance by asking him to do this? He would be too polite to say so if I was.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lance had come back into my room without me noticing him.

"You know what, this isn't a good idea. I'll be fine by myself," I said, folding my legs up in front of me on the bed.

"Nice try, but you are taking the pills and you are going to sleep," he said, frowning at me. He had changed into an outfit similar to mine, sweat pants and a t-shirt, though he looked uncomfortable in them. He probably usually slept without a shirt, like most guys did. I sighed, wishing I hadn't suggested this in the first place. It wasn't the fact that Lance was there, I hadn't been lying when I said that I slept better when someone else was with me, but the last time I had taken Valium to sleep had been right after my parents funeral, and it had not ended well. I had woken up from a nightmare and found myself tangled in the sheets, but I had been forced to wait nearly half an hour to be able to move my arms enough to get myself free.

I stared at the pills, then sighed and took two of them, the suggested dose, and swallowed them before I had a chance to overthink it again.

"Good," he said, smiling as he sat on the other side of the bed, across the pillow barrier from me.

"Thanks for doing this," I said. "Really. It's… nice of you."

"What are friends for?" He asked rhetorically, unfolding the blanket I had set on his side of the bed. "You are right though, this bed is really comfortable. And huge."

"It's a California King size," I said. "It's the one that used to be in my room at home. I had the guys who helped me move switch it with my old one."

"I know, I was there," he said, chuckling.

"Right," I said. "Sorry."

"Calm down," he said, letting me know that my face must have been showing my panic more than I had meant it to. "It's going to be fine. I'm actually kind of good at calming people down during panic attacks."

"I know," I said, wrapping my blanket around me and laying down on my back. I couldn't see him over the pillow barrier, but he was still talking, so I tried to calm myself down by taking deep breaths. I could feel the Valium kicking in, my legs and arms were growing heavy. "I really hate this." My voice was only a whisper now, but I could hear him breathing from where I was so I knew he heard. He moved the pillow that divided our faces, but my head felt too heavy to turn it to look at him.

"Just calm down and go to sleep," he said, his voice soft. I felt him pick up my hand that was closest to him and he stroked his thumb over the back soothingly. "Everything is fine and I'll be right here when you wake up."

"Okay," I said, my voice still a whisper. My eyes had closed at some point and I couldn't bring myself to open them again, but Lance kept a grip on my hand that I could still feel, and it was very soothing. Within moments I was asleep, falling immediately into the deep sleep that had been avoiding me for the past week.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

I don't remember what the nightmares were about that night, but I must have had them because even with the affect of the Valium making my body feel too heavy to move, I woke up in the dark with my blanket twisted around me tightly. I briefly forgot about taking the Valium, and when I tried to to free myself of the blanket, all I managed was a half hearted movement of my left arm. It must have been enough movement, however, because a second later I felt the blankets lighten, or maybe the drug was just wearing off. My head was swimming a little as I tried to open my eyes, and I had to blink several times for my sight to adjust to the very small amount of light in the room. It was either very late, or very early, I wasn't sure.

"Kate?" I heard a voice near me whisper, which, in my sleep deprived state made me struggle even more to free myself from the blankets. "Are you awake this time?"

"Lance?" I whispered as the previous evening came back to me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," he said, which further confused me. I couldn't remember what had woken me up, but I could feel my arms becoming lighter as the drug wore off a little. "Are you crying?" His voice sounded a little more awake now, but it sounded muffled, for some reason. Was I crying? I didn't remember crying, but now that I focused, I could feel the tears on my face, still falling. I blinked again. "You need to calm down, everything's fine, it was just a dream?" Calm down? Suddenly the room became quieter and I realized I had been breathing too fast. I could feel my heart hammering against my chest, and all of a sudden I was too warm.

A hand was on my face a moment later, brushing the tears off my cheeks, and then it was flat on my forehead for some reason.

"You are really warm," Lance said, his voice coming clearer to me now. "I think you have a fever," he said, sitting up a little, and suddenly I could make out his dark form in the even darker room. He untangled my arms from the blankets for me, then reached across me to open the window above the bed. The cool night air drifted across me, making me instantly feel better, and a little more awake. Lance settled back into the bed, closer than he had been when we had gone to sleep, and I noticed the pillows that had separated us earlier were shoved down to the end of the bed. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open by this point, but I wanted the medication to wear off, which happened faster when I was awake. "Are you okay?" Lance's hand had moved from my forehead to smooth my hair back, out of my face, just like my mother had done when I was sick as a child. I sighed, remembering.

"Yes," I said, my voice sounding weak, even to me. "I…"

"You what?" He prompted when I lost the thought of what I was saying as I struggled to turn onto my side, facing him. I curled up as much as I could, not able to wrap my arms around my legs like I wanted to.

"I'm never taking this again," I said, trying to will my limbs to work. My eyes were still leaking tears, which I only noticed because with my head on its side the tears had to find a new track across my face. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," Lance said, keeping his voice at a whisper like mine. "This has to be hard for you, you must be exhausted." He was right, I was. I couldn't keep my mind focused at all. He was still smoothing my hair back, which added to my desire to sleep.

"I don't want to sleep," I said, my voice seemed to have a mind of it's own. My body obviously wanted sleep, but if the medication was wearing off now, my brain knew I'd have nightmares again.

"Come here," he said after a moment, then, contrary to his words, he slid closer to me. He pulled my head and shoulders onto his arm, then pulled me in with the other arm, draping it over my waist. I sighed, automatically comforted by the closeness, and let my head rest on his shoulder. On my next breath in I could smell his laundry soap, shampoo, and something else that was uniquely his. My tears soaked into the shoulder of his shirt, but they slowed and stopped within another moment. My arms were curled up between us, but it was comfortable enough that after a few moments I could't open my eyes again. The hand of the arm I was laying on had begun a steady rhythm of rubbing up and down my back in a soothing way. Lance had begun speaking again, but I couldn't hear what he was saying over the rumble his voice made in his chest. It had been a long time, years, since I'd been held, but my body remembered the relaxed, content state that usually occupied this position, and I was asleep again within another moment.

The next time I woke up, I was only disoriented for a few seconds, then I realized that my blankets that were far too warm and too heavy, were in fact limbs. The sun was lighting up the room enough that when I opened my eyes, I knew immediately that I was curled into Lance's chest, one of my arms was around his stomach, both of his were around me, and my legs were tangled with his.

I tried to keep my breathing even and not move so as to not wake him while I tried to figure out what to do. My mind, however, was acting the traitor, and all I could think about was how warm Lance was, and how nice he smelled, and how attractive he was. As soon as I found myself thinking that, I began to move, gently pulling myself away from him. I managed to make it completely off the bed without waking him, and I left without allowing myself to look over him again, though I knew that his shirt had ridden up a little, and his hair would probably be cute all mussed from sleep.

I closed the bedroom door behind me, then sighed. I was really in trouble now. I hadn't dated in years, at least three. That fact, combined with the fact that he had now helped calm me down after a nightmare twice, was where this sudden attraction was steaming from. I really didn't want to start anything with him, anything longterm would eventually be ruined by the fact that I would be a rebound from Daisy, and anything short term would more than likely ruin our friendship. The best thing to do here would be to pretend I didn't remember anything from during the night, but I had tried my best not to lie to him at all. I didn't want to ruin whatever trust we had with each other by potentially being caught in a lie.

I needed to keep my hands busy as I thought. My muscles were still very relaxed from the Valium, but I could move, though it was a bit slower than my usual pace. I pulled out some eggs and bacon for breakfast, turning my attention to the stove as I thought. I could just act as though nothing had happened, and only mention it if he asked, which I didn't think he would. I did feel a lot better than I had yesterday. It was almost six in the morning now, which meant that I had slept for somewhere around twelve hours. Lance was still sleeping though, which either meant he was someone who slept a lot, or I had kept him up with my nightmares. I was guessing the latter. I started a pot of coffee, then went to wash my face as the bacon was cooking, and when I came back out, Lance was awake too. I knew my face had been drawn with worry as I was thinking, and I made a conscious effort to smooth it out and smile before he turned around.

I had been right earlier, his hair was very messed up, and very cute. I grabbed two plates from the cupboard I had just stocked with dishes the day before.

"Good morning," I said, and was glad to hear that my voice was even and chipper. I used a fork to pick the bacon up out of the pan, then dumped the already beaten eggs into the pan to cook with the bacon grease and flipped the heat off. I stirred the mixture which cooked with the residual heat of the pan in less than a minute, then dumped those out as well.

"Morning," he said, smiling as he accepted the plate I handed him. He had gotten two coffee mugs from my cupboard and handed me one full of coffee. I had the thought of how domestic this all was before I followed him to the living room. We sat on the floor, using the coffee table as a dining table. "How did you sleep?" I knew the question was coming but I had hoped he would phrase it into something easier to work around, like 'How are you feeling?'.

"I slept okay," I said, shrugging. His eyes immediately flicked to my face, then back to his plate, and I grimaced, realizing he knew I was not being completely honest. "Well, I slept longer than I have been. I feel a lot better." There, that wasn't a lie. Both of those statements were true.

"Do you remember waking up at all last night?" He asked, and I sighed, then used my fork to break apart pieces of egg as I was suddenly no longer hungry.

"Yeah," I said, not lifting my eyes from my plate. "I'm sorry for asking you to stay here. I know you have work today and now you are probably not well rested."

"Actually I slept really well," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching into a half smile for a second, then he frowned. "And I thought I told you to stop apologizing."

"You did," I said, smiling as our usual banter picked up again. I took a bite of my now cool eggs.

"So did you sleep better with me there?" He asked after another moment.

"Yeah," I said, trying to keep the blush off my face. After my realization this morning, it was hard for me to take his words objectively. "It's easier to not panic when someone is talking to me I think."

"Good," he said, nodding as though I had confirmed something for him that he had guessed already. "So do you always get up this early?"

"Most days," I said, nodding. "My usual sleep schedule is from midnight to six, but it's been off since I started having trouble sleeping."

"The sun isn't even up at six," he said, grumbling as he ate his bacon. I chuckled, then gestured out the window.

"It's just after six and the suns been up for a while," I pointed out, grinning now.

"It's just too early," he said, shaking his head.

"When do you normally get up?" I asked, frowning. "I've seen you go to work by seven every day this week."

"What are you stalking me?" He asked, chuckling.

"No," I said. "When I can't sleep I go downstairs and work, and I see you walk past the front windows every morning."

"I usually don't go in till eight, but this case we are working on has had a ton of paperwork," he said, then glanced at the clock above the tv. "Actually, I'm surprised Booth hasn't called me in yet. I should probably go make myself presentable for work." I didn't say anything as he got to his feet and went to rinse his plate off in the sink. I could still smell his shampoo, or maybe I could just remember it vividly, and it was making me want to ask him to stay for some reason. "Thanks for breakfast."

"You're welcome," I said, keeping my eyes on my plate. He must have heard something in my tone, because instead of leaving he sat back down on the floor across from me. I looked up, making sure to smile reassuringly.

"You know, it might help your nightmares if you talked to someone about it," he said, and I raised one eyebrow mockingly. "It doesn't have to be me, it can be someone else, but if you do want to talk to me about it, or anything, you can come down to the FBI building. I'll put your name on my list of clients so they'll let you in."

"Are you allowed to have clients that aren't with the FBI?" I asked, avoiding saying yes or no to the offer.

"Not technically," he said, shrugging. "But I have a lot of my day free when I'm not working on cases so more often than not I'll be there if you stop by."

"Thanks," I said, not looking up again. "I don't know why those pictures of Marlene are still bothering me so much, I hardly knew her and I've seen worse things in horror movies."

"I think it's because somewhere in your mind you keep blaming yourself for her death," Lance said, his voice taking on what I was starting to recognize as his 'Shrink' tone. "As long as you are feeling guilty about her death, your mind keeps coming back to the subject."

"You're right," I said, nodding. Part of my mind knew there was no possible way I could have prevented her death, but another part blamed myself for letting Albert live in my apartments, for not realizing he was selling drugs sooner. If I had actually done random check in's on my tenants like I said I would do, maybe Marlene wouldn't have died.

"Just, don't do anything rash. If you get upset, come see me immediately," Lance said, and these words drew me out of my thoughts as though someone had dumped ice water over my head.

"Do you really think I'm capable of… doing something rash, as you put it?" I asked. My voice was a little harsher than I had meant it to be, but I didn't want him to think that I was weak enough to do something like what he was suggesting.

"I think that someone who is as happy as you appear to be most of the time must have an extreme on the other end of the spectrum as well," he said honestly. I glared at him for a moment, then sighed.

"I won't do anything rash," I said, frowning at the words. I must have been doing a poor job of seeming sane to him. "I'm not usually as emotional as I have been the last week or so. You just happened to meet me at a difficult time in my life I guess."

"There's nothing wrong with being emotional," he said, leaning back against the foot of the couch. "It's a normal reaction to life."

"Weren't you going to work?" I asked, wanting to be alone now, regardless of how good he smelled.

"Yes," he said, jumping to his feet again. "I'll see you later then," he said, then hesitated for a moment, but left without saying anything else. I sighed, not as happy to be alone as I had thought I'd be. I busied myself with washing the dishes we had used for breakfast, then by straightening up the pillows and blankets we had used. After a shower and getting dressed, I decided that a shift at the restaurant was exactly what I needed to get my mind off of the mornings events.

I threw myself completely into work and put everything else out of my mind, which resulted in me being in a very good mood by the time the lunch rush ended.

"I'm glad you came in today Kate," Kathy told me as I dropped off the tips from my last table into the jar under the counter I used to store the cash and coins until they could be divided later. "Brian told me you've been working the night shift all week so I was worried you'd forget about us daytime people."

"I would never," I said, grinning at her as she passed by me with two cups full of soda for a table that had just come in. I waited until she had taken their order and put it back for the cooks before continuing our conversation. "Kathy, can I ask your opinion on some things real quick?"

"Sure thing," she said, wiping her hands off with a paper towel as she came back up to the front.

"Great," I said, glancing around for the other waitress on staff for the morning. "Danielle, could you watch the front for a bit? Just knock on the wall if you need help," I said, gesturing to the thin wall that separated the front of the building from the tiny office that I rarely used. I led Kathy into it and shut the door nearly all the way, as the place was a bit too small for two people to be seated with all the paper files in there.

"An office visit? This must be serious," Kathy said, her voice joking, though I could tell from her tone that she was nervous.

"I've been thinking about this place quite a bit the last week or so," I said, gesturing to the building around me. "I know that the whole aesthetic of the place is that it's old fashioned, which my parents loved, and I love too, but I think we need to make some updates around here. I've been going over the accounts from the last couple years, and we have been losing customers, slowly. I don't want to have to raise prices to keep this place in the green, and I definitely don't want to close down." She nodded, showing me she was paying attention. "You are smart and you've been here for a very long time so I know you have to have some ideas."

"I do have a couple," she said, but I held my hand up in the 'wait' motion.

"I know we haven't had an official manager since Rebecca left six months ago," I said. "I'm changing that now. You will be the restaurant manager, if you want the job. There will be no change in hours unless you want them, I know you have a teenage daughter at home, so I'm not going to take time away from that. You already write the schedule and you know how to do the product order and the books at the end of the night. You know what I look for in new hires and I'm sure you know who currently works here that shouldn't be here. My end goal for your promotion to manager is that eventually I will no longer work here, unless its an emergency." I took a breath in, then sighed. "I love this place and I enjoy working here, but I have another project in mind that is going to be very time consuming if it works out. Will you accept the job?"

"Yes," she said, looking a little surprised. "Of course I will."

"Great," I said, grinning. "I want you to start by making a list of everything around here that you think needs improving. It can be anything, from people here to new positions to the menu to construction projects. Write down every idea regardless of its practicality or expense, and I will go over it and decide what will work and what will not." I paused to wait for her to acknowledge what I had said.

"Okay," she said after a moment, realizing that I was waiting for her.

"I want you to start with making a list of people who need to be replaced," I said, knowing of at least two employees who were on their second strike already. "Don't fire them, just make a list for me. Tomorrow I am going to bring in a computer for this room so we can eventually put all these files into a storage room. I have some other ideas that I will be implementing eventually, but I'll let you know about them when the time comes. I want you to either promote or hire in someone to be your assistant manager, you will need one eventually and it's best to get someone trained to help you now.

"I think that Ashley would do well there," she said, nodding.

"The new girl?" I asked, frowning in thought. I hadn't hired her or talked to her yet, so I had nothing to base an opinion off of. "If you think she's fit for the job then I trust your judgment. I'd like to be here when you promote her since I haven't met her yet."

"She's in college for business management," Kathy explained.

"Perfect," I said, nodding. "If she sticks with that subject it'll be a good position for her. She may have some ideas about what can be fixed up around here too, you can talk to her about it later. That's really all I have for now, do you have any questions?"

"Not for now," Kathy said, smiling now. "I'll start on the lists for you today."

"Ask customers what they would like to see different about this place too," I said as she stood to open the door of the office. "White down what they say even if it's stupid."

"I will," she said, then turned back to me. "What's your other project?"

"I had an idea this morning of what I can do with my parents old house, but it's going to take a lot of work," I said, purposefully being vague. "If it works out I'll let you know."

"I'm glad to see you aren't letting things bother you anymore," she said, and I tilted my head at her to convey my confusion. "I was worried about you when you came back here after your parents… well it's just nice to see you have a cause again."

"Thanks Kathy," I said, smiling softly at her. "You're like family to me you know. I'm glad you haven't left us for a better job. I'm sure there are some out there."

"Not for me dear," she said, shaking her head. "This place is where I belong." I smiled again, then jumped as a loud rapping came from the wall opposite the door. I followed Kathy up to the front, expecting a lot of new customers, but there was only one at the counter.

"Sorry," Danielle said softly so the customer wouldn't hear. "I know you said to knock if it gets busy, but she was asking for you specifically ma'am."

"It's fine Danielle," I said, recognizing the woman as Angela. "I'll take care of her."

"Hey Kate!" Angela said as I approached her.

"Hi Angela," I said, grinning. "What brings you here? Are you hungry?"

"Not at all," she said, laughing. "I already ate. I came to give you this." She held up a piece of lined paper. I took it and unfolded it, curious. "It's my husband lawyer. He's very good, but he doesn't usually take on new clients without someone to vouch for them. Jack said if you give him a call and mention you are with the Jameston Foundation he may reconsider."

"Thanks," I said, tucking the paper into my apron pocket with my order book. "How did you know I owned that?"

"Jack saw the painting you gave me and said that the only people in town rich enough to give something like that away beside him was either a Macnamara or a James, and he knows the Macnamara's and said they aren't really into art so I just guessed," she said, grinning.

"Very good deduction," I said, grinning too. "Hey, you work with computer's right?" I asked, having an idea.

"Yeah, how did you know?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Deduction," I said, keeping my face straight.

"Really?" She asked, her face still skeptical.

"No," I said, laughing. "I saw an article published on the Jeffersonian a few weeks ago that gave you credit for solving a crime using a program you developed."

"I do some work with computers," she admitted, nodding. "Mostly I develop programs that help with the things we do at the Jeffersonian, like facial reconstruction and algorithms that calculate the amount of force needed to create a particular injury."

"But you know how to design computer software?" I asked.

"Yep," she said, nodding.

"Great," I said. "I'd like to hire you. Just for a couple weeks, and it won't interfere with your work at the Jeffersonian at all. I have some ideas for a program I need for this place and a few other things, that I'll explain if you agree. I'll pay you whatever your usual rate is for programming plus materials and time compensation."

"Wait, you are hiring me specifically for computer programing?" Angela asked, frowning in confusion. "You realize I don't have any sort of degree in computer science at all, right? I'm not really qualified for what you're asking. I'm an artist."

"I don't care about your qualifications, I care about your talent," I said, smiling. "Though I am thinking about redecorating this place so if you have a portfolio of your art I'd like to see it eventually."

"Okay," Angela said, standing form her seat. "I'll get back to you about the job offer okay? Maybe tomorrow?"

"Whenever you want is fine," I said. "If you want, you can give me your email address and I can email you more details about what I need."

"Yeah, of course," she said, and I handed her a pen and the paper with the lawyers name and number already on it. "I need to get back to work."

"Thanks Angela," I said, smiling at her. "I'll see you later."

"You are really on top of the game today," Kathy commented, watching Angela leaving.

"I should hire a personal assistant," I said, thinking out loud. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone who would be good at that would you?"

"Nope," Kathy said, shaking her head with a smile. "But I'd like to have whatever it is that's making you so motivated today."

"I just had a good nights sleep," I said, grinning. "I'm going to have to take off now though, if you don't need me here."

"Rachel is coming in at four," Kathy said, glancing at her watch. "I think we'll be fine."

"Good," I said, taking off my apron. "You guys can slit up my tips between you. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good luck Kate," Kathy said as I made my way to the door that led to the apartment stairwell.

* * *

I changed from my work uniform into my most expensive dress suit, then arranged my hair and makeup in a professional manner, using a good amount of hair gel to make my hair stay back.

Within half an hour I was in a cab on my way to the address Angela had given me for the lawyer. I would have called ahead, but chances were the receptionist had instructions to tell anyone who wasn't already a client that they couldn't have an appointment no matter what. I knew I had a better chance at actually talking to the lawyer if I showed up in person looking professional.

"Hi," I said, walking up to the receptionist inside the building. "Could you please deliver a message to Mr. Fields?"

"Do you have an appointment?" She asked, looking me over with an expression that told me she knew I wasn't a client.

"I'm not here for an appointment, I'm here to deliver a message," I said again, and she sighed and looked down at her computer screen.

"What's the message then?" She asked, not looking up at me anymore. I nearly changed my mind about the lawyer, if the other employees here were as rude as this woman I didn't really want to be associated with them… but Angela had said this guy was good and she seemed like she knew what she was talking about.

"My name is Kaitlin James. Please tell Mr. Fields that I represent the Jameston Foundation and I would like a quick word with him if possible," I said, keeping my face smooth with a polite smile. The woman looked me over again on hearing the name Jameston. Evidently she knew who I was, or at least, had an idea.

"Of course Ms. James. Mr. Fields' current appointment should be ending in just a few minutes," she said, getting to her feet. "Is there anything I can get you while you wait? Sparkling water, iced tea, coffee?"

"Coffee sounds lovely," I said, smiling at her again.

"If you would like to take a seat in the waiting area I'll bring it out to you," she said, gesturing to the cushy looking chairs around the perimeter of the room. I nodded and took a seat, watching as she first started a coffee maker, then typed something into her computer, then disappeared down a short hallway for a moment. I pulled out my own phone, to make sure it was on silent, though I wasn't expecting anyone to call anyway.

"Thank you," I said, accepting the cup of coffee when she brought it out.

"Mr. Fields said that he will be able to talk to you for a couple minutes if you don't mind waiting for another five minutes, but he has no appointment openings today," she told me, actually sounding sorry now that she wasn't able to do more. I almost sighed. This was one of the main reasons that I preferred to live as though I didn't have a lot of money. People always treated you differently when they found out. Well, not everyone did, now that I thought about it. Lance and Angela hadn't cared, but maybe that was because Angela hadn't ever known me without also knowing that I had money.

"That's alright, I only need a moment," I told her. She nodded and went to relay that to her boss. I sipped my coffee as I waited, and sighed. It was very good, and probably imported from out of the country. I didn't have much time to look at the decorations though as the receptionist came back down the hall, leading a middle aged couple that were very well dressed. I vaguely recognized them from a political article in the paper that I had glanced over months ago.

"Alright Ms. James," the receptionist said. "Mr. Fields will see you now." I stood, straightening out my suit skirt, and followed her down the hallway. She led me to an office, then shut the door behind me as I entered the room. The man at the dest was probably in his late fifties, judging by his hair. I smiled as I sat.

"Kaitlin James, of the Jameston Foundation," he said, smiling at me as he looked up from his paperwork. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I happen to be in the market for a lawyer," I said, feeling at ease with the man. "I was recommended you by a friend."

"I don't usually take new clients," he said, but he was still smiling so I took that as a good sign. "But I did happen to know your father. I was actually his family's lawyer before he was married. I was sorry to hear about the accident."

"Really?" I asked, surprised. I hadn't known that he'd even had a lawyer before he was married. "That's a surprise."

"We also attended the same university," he said, smiling. "As such, I'd be honored to take you on as a new client."

"Wonderful," I said, smiling. "I know you are busy, but I'd like to arrange an appointment to make sure you have all the proper paperwork and everything. I have a financial supervisor that's been with the family for years, so I'll make sure she sends all my information over to you."

"I have some time next week on Tuesday," he said, getting to his feet. We walked to the receptionist desk together as he listed off what kind of paperwork I should bring with me. "Lauren, please make Ms. James an appointment for next Monday."

"Of course, sir," she said, pulling out an appointment book. "1:30pm is your next open appointment."

"That works for me," I said, pulling out my phone to put it into my calendar.

"Alright," Mr. Fields said, clapping his hands together. "Thank you for coming by, we'll see you next week."

"Thank you Mr. Fields," I said, smiling, then turned to go back out to the street.

The strange motivation I'd been feeling all day was still fueling me as I walked down the street. There was a shopping district a few blocks away, and I had told Kathy that I wanted to get a new computer for the restaurant, I may as well do that today. Tomorrow I would go shopping for an assistant. First I would need to contact the Child Care Services about my idea for my parents house though, just to see if it was even going to be an option. I had gotten the idea while remembering what Lance had said about the foster system and how some places weren't as good as others.

I'd never given much thought to orphanages or foster care, since I'd never had a reason to before, but what better way to use the mansion my parents had left me? It had three wings and a semblance of a courtyard, nearly twenty acres of land behind it that was undeveloped woodland, on the other side of the property there were a couple outbuildings that had been converted into houses for staff members back in the day, but had been unused for at least twenty years now, but in my mind as I created what I wanted for this project, they could be used as housing for employees again. The main house was cut off from the road by a couple rows of trees which not only allowed for privacy, but cut off the noise of the traffic too. The entire property was completely enclosed by a tall cement brick wall, the front gate was electrically coded, so security had never been an issue before. The house itself had a total of 28 bedrooms, many of them large enough to house two people, and that didn't include the offices and parlors that could also be converted into bedrooms. The kitchen was not up to size to feed that number of people, but that could be changed. Overall, in my mind it was perfect for an orphanage, or foster house, or whatever they were called these days.

It would be a long time in coming though, I knew. Before I started the project I wanted to look into all the businesses and corporations the Jameston Foundation officially owned. My father had employed someone to manage all those facilities, and after he had died, I had left the business side of the income completely to the man, who's name I had only read in passing. I had no idea if the business with my name on them were legitimate, but I wasn't going to let other people control my fortunes for me anymore. My father had built up a good reputation for our family name before he had let others take over and he became a professor, and it was past time that I made sure his work was being carried on correctly.

Lance had said days ago that I might stop having the nightmares if I had something else to focus on, and getting my life together was definitely something to think about.

I returned home with not only a computer for downstairs, but a new one for myself as well, since my old one was very outdated. I didn't do much other than set it up before I typed out my outlines for the programs I wanted Angela to write for me and emailed it to her. I figured that, if she accepted the job, she would let me know what else I needed on the computers.

It wasn't very late by this point, just after eight, but despite all the sleep I had gotten the night before, I was tired again. I went though my bedtime routine, and fell asleep pretty quickly, considering the past week of nightmares. Maybe Lance had been right, and all I needed was a distraction.

He wasn't right was the first thing I thought when I woke up a few hours later, screaming. I couldn't recall what the dream had been about, but they weren't getting better at all. I cut off the scream as soon as I realized that I was doing it, and scrambled to get out of the bed. The illumination of the clock in my living room told me it was barely after midnight. Well, nearly four hours of sleep was going to have to suffice for the day. I heated some water on the stove for some tea, knowing that it would calm me down, and nearly spilled the hot water on myself when I turned around to see Lance in my living room. As it was, I spilled a bit over my fingers and winced.

"God, do you have to sneak up on me like that?" I asked, glancing over him. He looked as though he had just rolled out of bed and I had the brief thought that I must have been right about him usually not sleeping in a shirt, because this one was thrown on inside out. He was barefoot and obviously tired, but he rolled his eyes at my sarcastic tone and invited himself in to take a seat on the couch. "Did you need something?" I asked when he looked up at me expectantly.

"Sleep would be nice," he pointed out, frowning at me. "You look unusually happy for waking up screaming."

"How did you know that?" I asked, frowning as I sipped my tea and leaned against the wall.

"I heard you," he said, pointing to the celling.

"Oh," I said, frowning. I hadn't realized the walls were that thin. "But you're across the hall and upstairs. I hope I didn't wake anyone else up."

"It wasn't too loud," he said, shrugging. "I just heard it because I wasn't asleep yet."

"You look like you were asleep," I said, smirking at his very messed up hair.

"I was getting there," he said, rolling his eyes again. I emptied my cup and set it behind me on the counter, then turned to watch as Lance got to his feet again.

"I'm sorry for waking you," I said. "I'm fine now."

"Bull shit," he said. "Come on. You sleep better when someone is with you when you wake up right?"

"You don't need to do that," I said, shaking my head. "This has to be a weird situation for you."

"It is," he said, shrugging. "But I'll just sit up trying to think of alternative medication to Valium if I go home now. Besides, I'm used to not sleeping alone."

"Fine," I said, shrugging. "As long as you don't mind sharing a bed with me you can stay here whenever you want." I probably gave in a little too easily, but the attraction I had felt from yesterday morning had surfaced again. I frowned at myself as he flipped the light off and walked into my room. I really needed to clear my mind. If I were smart, I'd tell him to leave because there was no way this was going to end well if I pursued a relationship with him right now. But I'd let it go for right now. This would be the last time, I promised myself.

We stayed on our separate sides of my bed, and I listened as his breathing slowed and evened out as he fell asleep. Within minutes of his falling asleep, he rolled over and threw an arm over my stomach. I smiled to myself and tried to relax enough to fall asleep again. Cuddling definitely seemed to help with that.

* * *

The next morning I woke up to my cell phone ringing, which was odd because usually I woke up well before most people did. I reached across my bed to where my phone usually was, but encountered Lance instead. I opened my eyes to see he was still sleeping even thought my phone was on the bedside table right next to his head. I reached across him to grab it just as his eyes opened.

"Hello?" I asked, answering the phone. I tried my best to make my voice sound normal.

"Hello. This is Cassie Reynolds from the Child Protective Services offices. May I please speak to Ms. James?" The woman said, and I sat up and quickly climbed out of the bed.

"Speaking," I said.

"Good morning Ms. James," she continued, her voice more polite now. "I'm returning your call from yesterday evening."

"Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, Ms. Reynolds," I said, walking into the kitchen where I kept a pen and paper, just in case she was going to give me any information right away. I jotted down her name as the note header.

"Of course," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "We are very interested in hearing your proposal." I grinned. That meant that my idea for the house wasn't going to be immediately turned down. "I'd like to schedule an appointment for Friday morning so you can come in and talk with me and the other board members."

"Great," I said. "What time would you like me to come in?"

"Eight o'clock, if that works for you," she said. "We have our monthly meeting on Monday, so if the board agrees to your proposal, we can give you a set of guidelines within a week. I know that's a bit short notice."

"No it's perfect," I said. That would give me the next two days to put together all the information I needed, which would be a rush, but I could manage it. I wrote down the time and address she gave me.

"Great," she said. "If you have the original blueprints for the building, bring those with you. If you don't have them you can get a copy from public records at the city hall. We look forward to speaking with you. Have a nice day."

"Thanks, you as well," I said, smiling as I hung up the phone and jotted down the information about city hall. I scrolled through my phone again and hit call.

"Dr. Wells," the man answered, and I smiled.

"Hi Dr. Wells, it's Kaitlin James," I said, pulling open my fridge to look over what would make a good quick breakfast.

"Kaitlin!" He said, his voice turning friendly rather than professional. "What can I do for you?"

"I know you are busy with the semester ending in a couple days," I said. I wasn't sure when the semester actually ended, but it was late May now, so it must have been soon. "But I was wondering if you had some time to meet with me today?"

"Sure, I can make some time," he said. "Is this a social call or do you need something?"

"I know you are head of the business department up there and I'm looking to hire a PA," I said, smiling. "I figured you would be the best person to suggest one."

"I see," he said. "Taking over your dad's work?"

"Yes sir," I said, smiling. Dr. Wells had been friends with my parents for a very long time, and we had become friends when I was home from school for the summer. We had met when my parents invited him over for dinner, and had ended up arguing over the finer points of psychology for hours afterwords. From then on, every time we met he would have a new topic to argue with me over.

"Alright," he said, sounding like he was already in thought. "I'm sure you have some requirements to go over first, and I have quite a few graduates who will be looking for jobs."

"I thought you might," I said, grinning. "What time are your lectures for today?"

"I only have one and it ends at eleven, can you be here then?" He said.

"Sure thing," I said. "Thanks Dr. Wells."

"No problem Kaitlin," he said, then hung up the phone. I sighed, putting my hand on my hip as I though about what else I needed to get done that day. The City Hall visit would need to happen right away, I could do that on the way to the university. I still needed to meet Ashley too, to see if Kathy was right about her being a good fit for assistant manager. I needed to run background checks on all my current tenants too. After the whole drug thing and Marlene's death, I wanted to make sure that none of the other people had been doing anything illegal since moving in.

"You know, the fridge works better when you don't leave the door open," Lance said, making me jump again.

"You really need to stop sneaking up on me," I said, turning to face him and letting the fridge door shut. I happened to glance over his shoulder and catch sight of the clock over the tv. "Holy crap, it's after eight already? I slept way too late." I brushed past him to go back into my room and find some clothes to wear for the day. I didn't want to look too professional, but I definitely didn't want to look like a college kid as I probably usually did.

"Why are you so busy today?" Lance asked, watching me collect different clothes from around my room. "I don't think I've seen you in a rush… ever.

"Yeah well thats because I've been letting other people run everything for me since my parents died. It's been one year tomorrow, so I think it's about time I started getting back into life," I said, frowning as I tried to pull my hair back into a bun. "And you're the one who said that if I had something else to occupy my time I wouldn't have nightmares."

"A year tomorrow?" He asked, frowning in thought.

"Yeah," I said, frowning at him as he stood in my doorway. I pushed the door mostly closed so I could get dressed.

"I don't think I made the connection till now," he said, his voice thoughtful. "But maybe that's why you are having these nightmares."

"Like some sort of post traumatic stress thing?" I asked, pulling my clothes on quickly, then pulling the door open again. "That makes sense. I associate this time of year with bad memories, so my brain is giving me something else to focus on."

"Right," he said, raising his eyebrow as I darted around him to grab my phone, then my wallet and keys off the counter. "Maybe the nightmares will fade when this time of the year passes."

"You are probably right," I said, coming to a stop in front of him.

"I don't know how you have that much energy in the morning," he said, shaking his head. "It's only been like ten minutes and you're already kicking me out."

"No I'm not," I said, grinning. "You can stay as long as you want. There's some stuff in the fridge for breakfast if you want it. Or cereal. I just need to get going."

"It's like I live here," he mumbled, shaking his head at me. I grinned.

"You can live here if you want. I have a spare room and everything. Then I could rent out your apartment," I said. "It's not like you don't spend a lot of time here anyway. I promise I won't even expect to get married if you move in." He frowned at my attempt at a joke and I sighed. "Sorry, that was probably rude," I said, my eyebrows drawing together as I tried to think of a way to fix it.

"What?" He asked, frowning in confusion. "Oh the joke? I don't care, it was funny. Do you actually want to rent out my apartment?"

"Not as long as you are living there," I said, tilting my head to one side.

"I feel bad that I'm not paying you rent," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets.

"Oh yeah," I said. "I forgot about that. Well, if you want to stay here you won't ever have to pay rent. Otherwise you can pay next month if you want to stay in your apartment. I really don't care either way. I probably won't be here too often anyway for a while so it'll be like having a place to yourself, for the most part. Once I start looking into my dad's businesses I'll be traveling a lot."

"Why?" He asked.

"Well the Jameston Foundation is the 6th largest privately owned corporation in the country, so there's a lot of things to go through and they are pretty spread out," I said. "And I haven't payed attention to anything business related in over a year so I'm a bit rusty, and before that I only knew what my father told me about."

"Hodgins is the only person left of the Cantilever Group and he doesn't travel," Lance pointed out as I walked towards the door and my text alert rang out.

"He probably has people he trusts controlling things," I said distractedly. "I don't. Look, if you want to move in here, feel free to. You can have the key above the door. If not, I'll see you later. Sorry to rush out but I have some errands to run."

"Bye Kate," he said, but I was already out the door. Kathy had texted me what time Ashley was coming in later, and I put the time in my phones calendar, along with the Child Services meeting.

The cab ride to city hall took almost a half hour, and it took the woman at the desk almost that long to decide that I wasn't lying about my identity and go to find a copy of the blueprints of my house. It took her longer to get back to me, time which I spent pacing the perimeters of the wide room. She was very unhelpful, but she did manage to get me the information I needed in time for me to make it to the university with ten minutes to spare. I stood in the back of Dr. Wells lecture hall waiting for the lesson to end. I think the lecture had started on the subject of microeconomics, but judging by the attention of the students, Dr. Wells had gone off on a tangent about something that was more interesting to them. I waited until they were filing out of the room before making my way down to the front.

"Kaitlin!" Dr. Wells said, an excited smile on his face as he spotted me. "My office is right over here. I have quite a sizable list of prospective students for you to narrow down."

"Perfect," I said, grinning.

"Now, the semester ends tomorrow, but many of the graduate students have already finished their final exams and dissertations, so all but a few of the people on my list are off campus today," he said, shifting a few books around his desk as I took a seat in one of the high backed chairs int he office. "What are your specifications?"

"I'd prefer a business major of course," I said. "And someone with knowledge of Administrative Management too. A graduate of course, I don't want to take time away from school. They need a sense of humor or a easy going personality."

"Okay," he said, pulling out a couple pieces of paper from a pile on his desk as he sat down. "Anything that's not a requirement but a preference?"

"Some background knowledge of psychology," I said, thinking. "They need to be good with people. Organized, creative, friendly."

"Hm, okay," he said, crossing a few people off the list. "Working computer knowledge is a requirement for most business majors, so they all have that. Most of them have taken secretary type courses too, so they should all have basic organizational skills. Give me a minute, I'll narrow this down some more." I nodded and waited, feeling comfortable in the atmosphere of the office. My dad's office at school had been much like this one, overflowing with books and papers. "Okay, here's a list of six people that you can do your own research on. All six of them are in the top of their class and would be good fits."

"Thank you so much," I said, accepting the list. I started to get to my feet.

"Actually, Kate, do you have another moment?" He asked. I nodded and sat. "I have a recommendation for you. There's a boy here who I think would be a perfect assistant to you. He's actually reminded me of you on multiple occasions."

"Oh? Is he on the list?" I asked, glancing it over.

"No," he said. "He's not a business major, he's a religious studies major, but he was only a few credits away from a business degree when he changed majors. He still has a year left in his program now, but I think he is thinking about changing majors again, and if you offered him a job, he might be willing to take a year off. He doesn't really know what he wants to do, and I think if he had some structure in his life for a while, he would do well."

"Okay," I said, thinking it over. Dr. Wells wouldn't have suggested someone he thought was unable to do the job, so he must have seen something in this boy. "What's his name?"

"Jacob Rivers," Dr. Wells said. "I actually know where he is right now if you'd be interested in meeting him."

"Sure," I said, nodding. Dr. Wells led me out of the office, then out of the building, keeping up a conversation about my parents and how I was getting along. I explained my new project idea to him, and he seemed to approve, which I took as a good sign.

"There he is," Dr. Wells said, nodding across a small courtyard area to a tall boy who was talking to some other people. He had pale skin, paler than mine, and seeing as I had a lot of Irish blood in me, that was saying something. His hair was bright blond, nearly white in the sunlight, and he looked to be in his early twenties. Dr. Wells began across the courtyard, but I stopped him.

"Is it alright if I meet him first?" I asked, watching as the two people he had been talking to headed off in the other direction. "I have found that people behave differently in a professional setting than they do otherwise."

"Sure," he said, smiling in approval. I walked toward him and put myself in his way as he was turning around so that he ran straight into me, dropping the books he had been carrying.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he said, bending down to pick up the books. "I didn't see you there."

"I totally wasn't looking where I was going," I replied, making my voice purposefully lighter. "Here," I said as we both straightened and I handed him his book back. It was a text book focusing on Muslim religion. "Religious studies?" I asked, gesturing to the book.

"Yeah," he said, running a hand over his hair. "It's a lot more interesting than it sounds."

"I can imagine," I said, chuckling. "I'm a psychology major, and I've taken a few religion classes for fun."

"Nice," he said, chuckling. "Most people assume that the only people who go into religious studies are the hardcore religious people."

"Oh, you aren't religious?" I asked, tilting my head to one side.

"Not at all," he said, laughing. "I just find the overall concept of religion fascinating."

"Well then it's a good course for you," I said. "Are you graduating this year?" I asked, though I knew he wasn't.

"No, hopefully next year," he said, then hesitated. "I might change my major though. I'm thinking of going into the medical field."

"That will be a lot of work," I said, smiling. "I hear that doctors go to school for more than eight years."

"Well I'm only 24, so I have some time to figure it out," he said. I laughed and nodded as he shifted on his feet.

"That's true," I said. "My name's Kate by the way."

"I'm Jake," he said, grinning. "And I hate to be rude, but I have a class in ten minutes and I really need to get going. It was nice to meet you though."

"You too," I said, grinning. "I'll see you around."

"I hope so," he said, then turned. "Hi Dr. Wells," he said, waving as the man approached. I waited till Jake was out of sight before turning back to Dr. Wells."

"I like him," I said. "He's very energetic."

"That he is," Dr. Wells said, nodding. "I'll give you his contact information and you can set up an interview if you'd like."

"That would be great," I said, then waited as he wrote the name and number onto the back of a business card. I tucked it into the folder I had with the house blueprints and said my goodbyes, then took a cab back to my apartment.

That evening, after meeting with Kathy and Ashley downstairs to tell Ashley about her new promotion, I moved my couch and coffee table to the outskirts of my living room so that I could use the wide floor space to lay down multiple sheets of architects paper that I had gotten earlier. I started by sketching out a copy of the blueprints of the house I had gotten, then added blue lines for the water, red for the electric, green for the sewer and a darker green to represent the wooded area behind the house. After getting all of that information onto one paper rather than four different sheets, I began to make copies, illustrating what I would like to change or add, and what could be kept the same.

Of course, I knew very little about architecture, and only a little bit more about what requirements an orphanage or foster house should have, so I was just guessing at this point. I had changed from my slightly formal cloths into pajama shorts and a tank top. The day was hot, but not so hot that I felt the need to turn on the AC. After a while, I stood from my kneeling position over the floor to stretch my back and legs, and get something to drink, only to realize that it was nearly seven now and I hadn't eaten anything yet that day besides a cup of coffee I had gotten around noon.

I took a break from the blueprint papers and plans to go through the box of papers my father had kept in his study, looking for the folder of assets that Mr. Fields had told me to bring to our meeting next week. I added to it the list of valuable things in the house that I wanted to sell, such as the paintings and the cars.

Nearly the entire floor was covered with papers by the time Lance knocked on the door, then opened it to find me sitting cross legged on top of the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of ramen while reading over a list of antique car dealerships in the area that I had pulled up on my phone.

"Hey," I said, moving my bowl off my lap so I could jump down. "Sorry about the mess. Whats up?"

"What is all this?" He asked, stepping carefully to the side so he could shut the door without ruining any of the piles I had made.

"This is the paperwork that comes along when you decide to stop moping around and actually take control of your life," I said, grinning as I started reorganizing the papers into piles based off which meetings I'd need them for.

"Are these background checks?" He asked, picking up a paper off a pile, then frowning at the next one down. "Hey, that's me."

"They aren't background checks," I said. "Yet. Thats everyone who lives in my buildings in town or works at the Diner. That stuff is just what I found out from googling them. Once I get things settled down with my new lawyer I'll be able to have someone run actual background checks."

"Isn't that illegal?" He asked, frowning. "I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to get actual background checks on people unless you tell them you are doing so."

"You are probably right, but it's a clause in my standard lease agreement and its in the paperwork I make my employees sign. It's not my fault if they didn't read it throughly," I said, shrugging. "I've got signed consent from everyone in that pile except you. You can take yours out if you want. I probably wouldn't have had them run one on you anyway since you work at the FBI and I'm assuming they do pretty through checks on their employees."

"You don't have much here," he said, reading over his file with a chuckle.

"Well you don't have a social media page and the only information about you on the web is from the university you graduated from," I said, shrugging. "I'm not worried about you. I'm working about people dealing drugs out of my buildings and then killing people."

"Right," he said, setting his file down again. "So I actually came down here because of what you said this morning about me moving in here."

"It's fine if you don't want to," I said, shrugging again. "I know that moving in is some sort of code in most people's books so I understand if you don't want people thinking-"

"No that's not what I meant," he said, interrupting me. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave me a 'sorry' look. "I really don't care about what other people think of my living arraignments at all. I just don't want to give you the wrong impression about anything."

"Wrong impression?" I asked, tilting my head in confusion. "I asked you to move in because I actually prefer living with someone else and its been a while since I've met someone that I might actually enjoy living with. I'm not expecting you to owe me anything and living here wouldn't change anything really, except that I'll start making more coffee when I get up. What other impression did you think I would get if you decide to move in?"

"Nothing at all," he said, grinning as he relaxed a little. "You are very rational."

"Sorry," I said, smiling a little. My parents had always said the same thing.

"No it's a good thing," he said. "I can deal with rational."

"So you'll move in?" I asked, grinning.

"Sure," he said, nodding and tucking his hands into his pockets.

"Great," I said. "A few rules though," I began, leaning back against the counter. "Wash your own dishes, clean up after yourself, and don't walk around naked."

"I can manage that," he said, laughing. "I don't have a lot of stuff to move, just suits for work really."

"Well that room is all yours," I said, gesturing to the spare room. "If you need any more furniture let me know, there's a ton of stuff in my parents house that I'm going to need to get rid of. Oh, I should warn you though…"

"Warn me?" He asked when I didn't continue. I had gotten distracted with trying to make a mental list of what things in the house could stay and what should go.

"Yeah, sorry," I said, shaking my head. "I'm taking over all my parents businesses and stuff, as I told you before and its going to be a lot of work, like this," I gestured to the papers around the room. "And I'm going to be busy a lot."

"I'm glad I never had a family business to take over," he said, glancing around the room and shaking his head a little. "It looks way too complicated."

"It's not really," I said, grinning. "It's actually kinda fun. I actually forgot how nice it is to have something to do every day. I feel like I took a years vacation and now I'm just getting back to my life."

"If you say so," he said, smiling again.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, looking over my half eaten bowl of ramen. "I made that like two hours ago and it's kind of disgusting now."

"A little," he said, glancing at the ramen.

"I'll make something while you move your things down," I said, moving to the kitchen. "It can be a 'New Roommate Celebration' type thing. Just don't expect me to cook for you every day."

"I'm actually kind of good at cooking myself," he said. "Maybe I'll cook for you sometime."

"I'm not sure I'm that brave," I said, jokingly. He stuck his tongue out, then disappeared into the hallway to go back upstairs. I smiled to myself as I pulled some vegetables out of the fridge and started to make a proper meal. Living with someone would definitely be good for me, and with Lance it would be fun too. I was more motivated when I knew that someone else was going to be seeing me, more likely to clean the apartment, more likely to eat actual food rather than ramen, less likely to succumb to bouts of sadness.

I was proud of myself for the day I'd had. I'd been very productive, and I hadn't once thought about the anniversary of my parents death tomorrow. I'd go to the graveyard in the morning and leave some flowers. It seemed a fitting farewell to the life of slacking and hiding out that I was leaving behind me. They would probably be proud of what I was doing now, even though my father had loved that stupid house so much. At least now it would be used for something good, hopefully.

I made a stir fry for dinner, then realized that I had absolutely no idea if Lance was allergic to anything. One of my many roommates in college had been allergic to soy sauce, and I hadn't known that at the time, which had resulted in an emergency epi-pen use and a trip to the hospital. I had felt terrible for weeks, though she had assured me she was fine afterwords.

"We should get a little table to go in here," Lance said, making me jump. I hadn't heard him come back into the apartment, probably because I had been in the kitchen putting our dinner onto plates.

"Like a dining table?" I asked, handing him a plate and going to the fridge to get some beer. "I thought about it but there's not really room now that I actually have furniture in here."

"Not a real dining table, one of those tall ones that's made for one or two people," he said, using his hands to illustrate what he meant. "There's one in the apartment I was in upstairs."

"Oh," I said, nodding when I realized what he was talking about. "Yeah, when I put the couch back where it goes we could put it against the wall over here."

"Exactly," he said, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table again. I handed him a fork then took a seat across from him.

"Are you allergic to anything?" I asked before he could take a bite.

"Cat's, but only a little," he said, shrugging. "I can be around them for a while, just not too long. And I have allergies in the spring to flowers and stuff, but nothing too bad. Are you?"

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "I don't even get allergies."

"Lucky you," he said, chuckling. "This is really good by the way."

"Thanks," I said, taking a bite of the food. "I learned how to make it my third year at school when I realized that I should probably know how to make more than the food the restaurant serves."

"I learned to cook when I was younger," Lance said, taking another bite. "My mother was good at it. More so with baking, but I learned some cooking."

"Well since most guys don't even know there is a difference between baking and cooking I think you are pretty well educated," I said, chuckling. "I'm actually really bad at baking. For some reason I always forget to take the stuff out and it ends up burnt. Even when I set a timer. It's the only time I actually forget things."

"Oh good," he said, and I tilted my head in confusion. "You seem to be good at everything else you do. It's nice to know you are human after all."

"Oh don't worry," I said, laughing. "If you spend enough time with me you will realize I'm bad at a lot of things. Mostly creative things, like art. I'm okay with music but painting and drawing are not my forte. I can't even do crafts. Like knitting. I'm terrible at knitting."

"I actually know how to do that," he said, chuckling. "I find that when I'm studying something it helps to keep my hands busy."

"You sound like an old lady," I said, smiling. "My mom used to say the same thing. She would knit these amazing afghans and hats and stuff all while listening to my father plan a lecture or something."

"Yeah I can't make anything except a scarf. Anything more than straight lines is too complicated," he said, shaking his head. By this point we both had finished the food on our plates, so I stood to take them to the sink. "I thought one of the rules was to wash my own dishes?"

"Yeah well, I'll do it this time," I said, shrugging. "You can go figure out how to get that table and chairs down here from your old apartment if you want to be useful." He laughed, but left to do so. I rinsed the dishes, the put them into the dishwasher and went to push the couch back into its place, making sure that my stacks of papers weren't disturbed.

"Got it," Lance said, once again making me jump as he set down the small table with a bang.

"Do you have to be so quite when you walk?" I asked, irritated with myself for not paying attention. "You are going to give me a heart attack one of these days. You brought all these down in one trip?" I asked, frowning at the tall chairs I hadn't noticed till just then.

"No I made two trips," he said, chuckling. "You just didn't hear me before."

"I'm going to sew tiny bells onto all your clothes so you can't sneak up on me," I threatened, watching him push the table against the wall, then the chairs. It fit well into the room, and it would certainly make eating easier.

"You said you can't do crafts," he said, obviously suppressing a laugh.

"My IQ is 152, I think I would be able to figure it out pretty quickly," I mumbled, frowning.

"And yet you still talk like a normal person," he said, frowning to himself. "Thats interesting."

"I have no idea what you are talking about now," I said, shaking my head.

"Everyone at the Jeffersonian that has a high IQ all talk… not normally," he said, stolen thought. "Yet you don't."

"I'm not big on scientific talk," I said, shrugging. "I don't like to make other people feel stupid by using words that they don't understand because it makes them less likely to do what I need them to do."

"So you identify with people because you want them to do things for you," he said, and I could see him turning into his 'shrink' self.

"Okay wait," I said, backtracking. "I don't do that to manipulate people, I just meant that its easier to keep people in good moods if I don't make them feel stupid."

"It's interesting that you would jump to manipulation so quickly," he said, taking a seat on one of the new chairs at the table he had just brought down.

"I've been told that I'm manipulative before," I said, shrugging, no longer comfortable with the conversation topic. "It's hard to excel in life when you don't know how to get along with people." That wasn't exactly what I meant, but I didn't know how to explain myself without sounding like a bad person. Then I realized that he probably wouldn't judge me over it and changed my mind. "Okay, I'm a little manipulative sometimes. I know what I want from most people and I usually know how to get them to act how I want. It's just something I've always been good at doing."

"Everyone does that, to some extent," he said, and I relaxed a little. I had been right about how he would react. "It's not a bad thing unless you see yourself as a bad person."

"I don't," I said, nodding.

"I know that," he said, smiling, then he frowned a little. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"I need to finish some stuff I've been working on," I gestured to the pile of blueprint plans. For some reason I didn't want to tell him about the Child Service's meeting I had, just in case it didn't work out. He had told me very briefly that he had been in the system, but I had no idea how he would react to the subject now. "I'm going to hire a personal assistant. I'm going to need one sooner rather than later, and I have a couple people to talk to about it. I'll do that tomorrow. Why?"

"I meant with the anniversary of your parents death," he said, shaking his head. "How are you handling it?"

"I'm fine," I said honestly. "Death is just something that happens to everyone eventually. I'll be fine. Are you going to be charging me for this session?"

"Sorry," he said, smiling wryly. "Sometimes it's hard to get out of the psychologists mindset when I come home from work."

"It's fine," I said. "I'm just not used to talking so much about myself to people." I chuckled. "If you know everything about me now you are going to get bored of me later."

"You are very surprising actually," he said, chuckling. "You don't really fit into any specific type of person."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said, laughing.

"You can," he said, smirking. "It's also a sign of psychosis."

"Hm," I said, frowning to myself. "If I start going crazy let me know."

"I will," he said, laughing as he got to his feet. "I'm going to sleep. I have to be up kinda early, we have a new case we are working on."

"Okay," I said. "Good night."

"Night," he said, disappearing into his room. I wasn't even the least bit tired, though it was close to ten now, so I pulled out my blueprints to go over them again.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

I slept maybe two hours that night, and, thankfully, when I woke up it was only with a gasp, not a scream. I stayed in bed for another couple hours, my mind was too busy going through the things I needed to do that day, staring with going to the flower shop on State street that my mother had loved so much.

With all the running around I was beginning to do, maybe I should consider getting a car. But that was something I could think about later. I was sure that the white Prius my mother had owned before her death was still in the garage at the house, or in one of the garages of the outbuildings. My dads black Corolla had been totaled in the crash.

I finally got out of bed around five, which I thought would be late enough that Lance wouldn't suspect that I had barely slept. It really was best to keep my distance. Asking him to move in had been one last attempt from my traitorous mind to keep him near me. Maybe he was right, I was manipulative.

I brewed coffee, enough that there would be some left for Lance whenever he decided to get up. As I waited for my cup to cool down a little, I hunted down some bread to make toast. I wasn't too hungry after last night's stir fry since that had been pretty late, but I wasn't sure when I'd have a chance to eat again. When it got to be an acceptable time, I'd need to call Jacob Rivers and see if I could set up an appointment with him. I'd do that after the cemetery.

It hardly felt like an entire year had gone by, but at the same time it had felt like much longer. One of the main reasons I had left the house for the apartment in the first place was that for days after the funeral, reporters had been outside the house, constantly questioning if I would be taking over for my father, what I would be doing next, and all the questions I hadn't wanted to face at the time. I hadn't realized it until recently, but I had been in hiding, so to speak. I had run away from anything I considered a responsibility, avoided anything that was unpleasant. If I were older I'd have called it a midlife crisis of sorts. Marlene's death, though I wasn't even close to her in any sense, had reminded me that life is short.

It had given me the jumpstart I'd needed.

When I was done with my toast, I reached to pick up my cup of coffee, which should be cool enough by now, but when I turned I found Lance leaning against the counter, drinking my coffee. I couldn't help it, I jumped.

"That's it, I'm buying some bells when I go out today," I said, frowning at him and brushing my hand over my blouse, smoothing it back into place. At least I hadn't been holding the coffee, that would have meant finding another 'professional but not stuffy' outfit.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" He asked, ignoring my comment.

"Yes," I said, pulling my cup of coffee out of his hands. "I made plenty of this, you don't have to steal mine."

"But yours is cool enough to drink right away," he said, his voice taking on a bit of a whine. I rolled my eyes and shoved an empty mug into his hands. "You don't look like you slept. You have bags under your eyes."

"Really?" I asked, frowning. I hadn't actually done more than glance in the mirror as I was dressing after my shower. Today would have to be a makeup day. I finished off the half cup of coffee in my hands, then set it on the counter and went into the bathroom. He was right, I did have bags under my eyes, though they weren't too bad, which was probably why I had missed them before. I used the least amount of makeup I could manage and still look decent, then went back into the living room area.

"Are you still having nightmares?" He asked, handing me a refilled mug of coffee. I sighed, sitting down at the table.

"Yeah," I said, not wanting to lie. "They aren't about anything though. I just wake up suddenly."

"The lack of sleep isn't good for you," he said, drinking his coffee. He was still dressed in casual clothes, sweats and a t-shirt, which meant that my mind automatically jumped back to yesterday morning when I had woken up next to him. I shook my head and sighed.

"I have an important meeting tomorrow, so if I have trouble sleeping tonight I'll take my meds," I promised, finishing off my coffee and getting to my feet. "I thought you had to go into work early today?"

"Yes, but early to a normal person is like seven," he pointed out. "It just doesn't seem early to you because you get up at three every morning."

"I do not," I said, chuckling. "Usually I wait till five. What time will you be back today? I can make dinner if you want."

"I thought that was a one time thing to celebrate my moving in," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"I like cooking," I explained, shrugging. "It's been a long time since I've had someone to cook for."

"I should be done between 5 and 8 depending on how much progress we make on the case today," he said.

"That's a big window," I said, shaking my head. "I won't be here at five, probably. I'll just wait till you get here to start anything."

"If I beat you home I'll cook something," he said, smiling a little.

"Deal," I said, grinning as I made sure my phone and wallet were in my purse. "See ya."

"Bye Kate," he said, sipping his coffee again.

I sighed when I was in the hallway and had to resist rubbing my eyes. My head was starting to ache, which usually only happened when I was starting to get sick, but I hoped it was just a product of little sleep and stressful dreams.

The lady at the flower shop recognized me even though the last time I'd been there I had been with my mother, about six years ago. When I explained why I wanted the flowers so early in the day, she let me in, though she wasn't technically open yet, and gave me an extra bouquet to give to my mother 'from her'. I could have taken a cab to the graveyard, but it was only just over five blocks away from the flower shop, so I walked it.

I set the flowers against the gravestone my parents shared. They had been cremated and buried together, which had been my idea since neither of them had specified funeral details in their wills. I cleaned the twigs and leaves from the winter off the grave, leaving them in a pile off to the side, then I stood quietly for a few moments.

People always spoke when they went to grave sites, but I had never understood the purpose of doing so. I didn't believe in a god, and I didn't pray, though my mother had done both. My father hadn't said anything about it though I knew he felt the same way I did about organized religion. As the silence wore on, I felt the growing need to say something, anything really.

"Well, mom," I began, then stopped to clear my throat. "I hope you were right about all that god stuff and heaven. Dad, I hope you are enjoying whatever type of afterlife you believed in. I know that ghosts don't exist, but it they did… if they do, and you are here… I love you both. And I miss you." I took in a breath, then let it out slowly, blinking my eyes so they would stop tearing up. "I have some important things to do today, so I'm not going to cry. I've been sort of out of the game since the crash… but I'm back now. I'm going to start shaping up. I…" I trailed off, not sure what else to say. "I'll see you next year. I promise."

I stood in silence for a few more moments, then turned to walk down the isle of grave stones, back out to the street. My parent's had been buried in a nice place. It wasn't close enough to the road that there was constant traffic, it was peaceful. If I liked graveyards, it would have been a nice place to sit and get away from the world. But I didn't like graveyards.

It was just after seven by the time I made it back to the street, which I decided was late enough to call the number Dr. Wells had given me for Jacob Rivers. I found a bench, then sat to make the call.

"Hello?" He asked, and I was glad to hear that he seemed to be an early riser as well, judging by his voice.

"Hello, may I please speak to Mr. Rivers?" I asked, though I recognized the voice to be his.

"This is he," he said, and I smiled at the curiosity in his voice.

"This is Kaitlin James from the Jameston Foundation," I said, then frowned at myself. Maybe that wasn't as descriptive as I had meant it to be. After all, it was very unlikely that everyone in DC knew what the Jameston Foundation was.

"Oh, wow," he said, and I grinned. "Uh, Ms. James, what can I do for you?"

"I'm looking to hire a personal assistant," I began. "You were recommended to me by someone I trust and I'd like to set up an interview if you are interested."

"Oh my god," he said in surprise, and I has to stifle a laugh. Then he cleared his throat and his voice grew more professional. "I'd be honored to give an interview. What time would you like to meet?"

"Are you free anytime today?" I asked. "I know thats a little short notice but I like to move quickly."

"Of course," he said, and I could hear a rustling of papers over the line. "I'm free any time today before five, so whenever works for you."

"How about now?" I said, glancing around me for a place suitable of conducting an interview. "There's a Starbucks on the corner of State and First."

"The one next door to a records store? I know that one. I can be there in ten minutes," he said, his voice growing more excited.

"Perfect," I said. "Bring your resume if possible. Don't worry about dressing professionally or anything like that, I'm pretty lenient. I'll have a contract for you to go over if you want."

"Thank you so much Ms. James," he said. "I'll be there."

"I'll see you in a little bit then, Mr. Rivers," I said, then hung up the phone and began to make my way across the street. I ordered an iced coffee in an attempt to cool down after my foray into the cemetery, then found a table and pulled a thin folder of papers from my purse. The contract I was going to give to Jacob when he got here was a very general one, a variation on what I gave my tenants. Once I met with the lawyer next week I could have him draw up a more specified contract. I sipped my coffee, then leaned back in my chair.

Jacob Rivers was two minutes early, which led me to assume that he lived nearby. I watched him climb out of a cab and make a joke to the driver, then come inside. He glanced around, but I kept my face down so he wouldn't see me, then watched as he ordered a coffee, saying something that made the barista giggle and blush slightly. He really was good with people. I waited until he sat down at a table nearby, glancing at the door anxiously, before I got up, grabbed my things, and slipped into the chair across from him.

"Oh hey, you're Kate right? I met you yesterday," he said, and I smiled. He had a good memory too.

"My full name is Kaitlin James, actually," I said, nodding.

"Really?" He asked, making the connection and chuckling. "I should have guessed that. So was that some sort of test back at the school?"

"Sort of," I said, grinning as he relaxed into his chair. "I wanted to see how you deal with people. From my observations, you do so very well."

"Thanks," he said, grinning as he ran a hand over his hair. "I've always been a bit of a people person." While he spoke he rifled through some sort of organizational filing system that was able to be zipped up, and pulled out a clear folder. "This is my resume."

"Great," I said, then slid the contract toward him. "This is a generic contract I give to all my employees. I can have a more detailed one by next week. Basically, your job would include my day planning, organizing meetings, driving me places, taking my calls, things like that. I want to hire you on a trial basis for a few weeks, then if you like the job and want to stay and I think you fit in well, we can have a new contract drawn up. This one is just a basic NDA, you can't go to the press with my private life or talk to my competitors about what I'm doing, things like that." I stopped when he started to frown. "What are you thinking?" I asked, my brow raised. He hesitated, but spoke after a moment.

"A couple things," he said. "Don't you want to read over my qualifications before you hire me?" He asked, gesturing at the resume.

"I'll read it eventually, and I'll do a background check, but you were recommended to me by Dr. Wells, and I trust his judgment. I gave him a list of requirements for the job, and though you fit almost none of them he recommended you anyway, which means that he has a high opinion of you," I said, then smiled. "Next question?"

"Okay," he said, shaking his head in slight disbelief. "I don't have a car to drive you places."

"I will supply the car," I said. "You can consider it to be your business car, but as long as you don't crash it I don't care how many miles you put on it in your free time. It's a Prius, I hope that's alright."

"Sure," he said, looking a little stunned.

"The hours are going to vary," I warned. "I'm hiring you specifically because I am starting a couple new projects. This job will be time consuming. I understand you still have one year left in your current program and are planning on returning to school in the fall. I won't keep you from that, but I'm hoping you will decide not to return next semester. If this job works out for you, I will pay for your tuition when you do decide to return. I don't estimate my projects to talk longer then two years to complete."

"I wasn't going to go back in the fall anyway," he said, shaking his head. "I was going to take the year off."

"That works out well then," I said, smiling. "Now, living arraignments. I'd prefer if you lived somewhere near to me to cut down on travel time. Where are you currently living?"

"Up till tomorrow I live on campus," he said, frowning. "After that I was going to stay with… a friend of mine, he lives about eight blocks that way." He pointed the direction he meant and I frowned.

"I live about twenty-five minutes from here in the opposite direction," I said. "I own a series of apartment buildings, a couple of which are currently vacant. If you made an obligation with your friend I do have a couple two bedroom places open too. The rent would be free."

"I'll have to get back to you on that," he said, frowning.

"That's fine. I'll understand if you would rather keep your current living situation," I said, shrugging. "It just means more driving time for you in the long run. Just as a warning, I've never had a PA before so I'm new to this too. It will be a learning experience."

"You've got that right," he said, shaking his head with a grin.

"I'm glad you have a sense of humor," I said. "I think we will get along well. You can take that and look it over, but if you have time right now, and are leaning towards accepting the job, I have a few errands to run. You can consider it as a practice run."

"Sure," he said, finishing off his coffee. We had spent nearly an hour going over things, which was late enough for the cell phone company to be open, which was my next planned stop.

"Great," I said, getting to my feet. "Let's go."

We walked the couple blocks to the Verizon store, and went inside.

"This is my current cell phone," I said to Jake, showing him my iPhone. "A lot of people have this number, and starting today its going to be my public number, and will be in your possession. I'll give you a list of people that should be put through to me right away no matter what, but most of the time you can deal with whoever is calling. If you don't know how to handle a situation, ask me right away. I'd rather avoid problems in the future, and that way you will learn what to do."

"Yes ma'am," he said, walking next to me.

"Don't call me that," I said, chuckling. "It makes me feel old. Kate is fine. Or Ms. James if we are in a professional setting."

"Okay Ms. James," he said, and I chuckled again.

"I meant professional like meeting important looking people," I said keeping my voice low as a sales person finally approached us. "This is definitely not one of this situations." He smiled, then straightened his face.

"Hi, welcome to Verizon," the woman said, looking very peppy. "How can I help you?"

"I need to add a new phone to my plan," I said, following her up to the counter. Then I frowned and turned to Jake. "Do you have a cell phone?" I asked.

"Yep," he said, nodding.

"Do you want a new one?" I asked, glancing around us. "I can add you to my plan. It can be a business plan then."

"Actually our business plans have a minimum of four lines," the woman said, tying something into her computer. "What name is your current account under?"

"Kaitlin James," I said, frowning. Was there anyone else I knew that was connected to me by work who needed a phone? I couldn't think of one.

"Actually I just got a new phone a few months ago, I'm set," Jake said, answering my question.

"Okay, no business plan then," I told the woman, who nodded.

"Okay Ms. James, so you just want to add one line to your current plan? Did you want to update your plan at all?" She asked, and I shrugged.

"Unlimited calling minutes, unlimited texts, and unlimited data," I said, listing my current plan, which was more expensive than I thought it should be, but I wouldn't contest it since they had good coverage. "Isn't that about as good as it gets? I just need a new line, and a new phone."

"Oh a new phone too?" She asked, tying again. "We just got in a new smartphone that-"

"Sorry, I'd prefer an iPhone," I said, interrupting her only because she seemed like she had enough energy to just keep talking forever.

"The only one we have in stock right now is the iPhone 5c," she said, and I smiled.

"Thats fine," I said. "Thats the one i have right now, so I'll know how to use it."

"Okay let me just set this up for you then," she said. "It'll take a few minutes." I nodded.

Within ten minutes we were walking out the door with my new phone, which I think was the least amount of time I'd ever spent in the store.

"Okay that took a lot less time than I thought it would," I said, glancing at Jake. "I need to go to an architects office downtown, but they won't be open till ten." It was barely nine by that point. "If you want, I could show you the apartment, just in case you decide to move into it."

"Sure," he said, grinning. "I finished all my finals yesterday so I really have no plans today at all."

"Great," I said, grinning. I hailed a cab.

"I thought you said you had a car," he said, confused.

"I do," I said, climbing into the cab. "I'm not exactly sure where it is at the moment though. It's a long story. I'll get it by tomorrow though. Probably."

"Okay," he said, his voice suspicious. I grinned.

"The car I was talking about has been parked up at my old house for the last year. I'm not sure which garage it's in," I explained.

"Which garage?" He asked, and I chuckled.

"There are a couple," I said. "You'll understand when you see the place. Which will probably be this afternoon if you have time."

"Okay," he repeated, sounding just a little less confused.

We took the cab back to the restaurant and I led him up the stairs to my floor, to the apartment next door.

"This is the two bedroom place," I said, unlocking the door. "Obviously this stuff will be moved out," I gestured tot he boxes of spare supplies for the restaurant. "The place downstairs is open 24 hours so you get some noise from it, but honestly it usually not a problem. If you don't have furniture or anything for an apartment, which I'm assuming you don't since you live in dorms right now, I have a ton of stuff you can put in here. The one bedroom places are upstairs, theres one open one on the third floor, fully furnished minus a dining table that I took out yesterday, and theres an empty place on the fourth floor too."

"My friend that I was going to move in with has a bunch of stuff," he said, looking around the empty place. "So if he does want to move in we wouldn't need furniture. He's a light sleeper though so I don't know if living above a restaurant will agree with him."

"Well I live next door and I've never had a problem with noise," I said, gesturing to the wall that divided this apartment from mine. "I'm kind of a light sleeper, though not as much as I was before college." He nodded, frowning in thought as though he wasn't really listening. "Is there something else wrong?"

"Before you hire me you should know that… well, I like boys," he said, seeming a little embarrassed. "So if thats a problem for you I'd rather have you know now than find out later."

"Hm," I said, smiling a little. "I also like boys. So as long as you don't hit on whoever I'm dating at the time, I don't think we will have a problem."

"Deal," he said, laughing. He relaxed around me after that, and I guessed it was because he had been turned down for jobs in the past due to his sexuality. "I'll ask Sam about the apartment and let you know what he thinks."

"If he wants to look at it later just give me a call," I said, then frowned. "Actually I probably should set up my new phone before telling you to call, otherwise I'll forget." I turned to leave the apartment, then went over to mine, unlocking the door and leaving it open for Jake to follow behind me.

"Nice place," Jake said, looking around the apartment.

"Thanks," I said, grinning. "Up until about a week ago everything was empty except the bedroom. I never spent much time here so I didn't see the point in having things like a couch, or a tv."

"What's different now?" He asked, chuckling.

"I decided to officially move in," I said, opening up my new computer so I could use the internet to set up my phone. "And I got a roommate."

It took very little time to set up the phone and move all my contacts from my old phone to the new one, just in case I needed them. Then I added the old phones number to my current one and vice versa.

"Okay, here," I said, giving Jake the old phone. "If you decide not to take the job you can bring it back tomorrow."

"Okay," he said, tucking it into his pocket.

"If you do take the job I'll work on getting you a business card for my expenses," I said, thinking aloud. "I don't know if you prefer to keep track of meetings on paper or electronically, but either way I'll buy something for that."

"You are very trusting for someone who just met me yesterday," he said, shaking his head.

"Consider it a test," I said, grinning. "If you steal my things and run off, just know that my roommate works for the FBI so I will find you."

"That would be a misuse of the sources I'm provided, and also against protocol. Also, I'm not an FBI agent, I'm a profiler, it's not the same thing," Lance said from the open doorway, but he was grinning so I knew he wasn't being serious.

"Jake, this is my roommate Lance," I said, making introductions. "Lance, this is hopefully my new PA, Jake Rivers."

"Nice to meet you," Lance said, shaking Jake's hand.

"You too," he said, his voice taking on a smooth tone. "Very nice." I raised one eyebrow and held back a laugh at the surprised look on Lance's face at Jake's flirting.

"Roommates are off limits too, Jake," I said, taking pity on Lance as his face grew red.

"Spoil sport," he muttered under his breath, and I laughed as Lance grew even more red.

"Why are you home?" I asked, glancing at the clock. It was barely noon, and with a case I had assumed he would be gone much later.

"It's my lunch break and I forgot some things for work," he said, shrugging.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, turning to Jake, who in turn shrugged. "Lets go downstairs, lunch is on me."

"Is she always this trusting of people?" I heard Jake ask Lance as we headed out the door. "Since I met her she's offered me a car, a phone, a credit card, an apartment, and now lunch."

"She did the same thing to me," Lance explained, keeping his voice low. "I think it's normal for her."

"I see," Jake said, serenely.

"I can hear you gossiping," I said over my shoulder as we walked down the stairs.

"Sorry," both of them mumbled as though they were kids that got caught steeling cookies. I chuckled.

Throughout lunch I was quiet, preferring to observe the way that Jake and Lance got along. Lance probably wasn't the best person to test out how Jake interacted with people, since Lance seemed to get along with everybody, or at least, not mention it when he disliked someone. Jake was nice to the waitress though, which was always a good way to judge how someone treats other people. I put my new phone number into Lance's phone while we ate, and made sure to give it to Kathy too, with the instructions to only use it for non work related emergencies.

"So what else are you guys doing today?" Lance asked.

"I dunno," I said, shrugging. "I have a short meeting with an private contractor, and I was thinking about taking Jake up to see the house so we can get a car, but he might have other plans." Jake had been reading over the contract I'd given him as he ate, but I wasn't sure what he thought about it, since he hadn't mentioned anything. He certainly wasn't paying attention to the conversation anymore, which was either a good sign, or a bad one, I wasn't sure. "It seems unfair to make him cancel plans when he didn't even know who I was this morning."

"Fair," Lance said, shrugging. "Well I need to get back to work. I probably won't be too late, we haven't learned much about the case. So I'll make dinner."

"Anything special?" I asked, smiling.

"Do you like spaghetti?" He asked, grinning.

"Definitely," I said, nodding. "It's one of my favorite foods."

"Well you haven't tried it my way. I guarantee you won't want any other kind of pasta ever again," he said, leaning back in his chair with a self satisfied smirk. "I'll even wash the dishes since you did last night."

"You do realize we sound like an old married couple, right?" I pointed out, chuckling. "Next we will be adopting a cat and watching 'I Love Lucy' reruns."

"I've never seen I Love Lucy," he said, shaking his head with a smile. "And I'm allergic to cats."

"I know," I said. "I was just making a point."

"We can adopt a goldfish instead," he said, laughing.

"No way," I said. "Fish smell weird and they are not fun to have as pets."

"I disagree," he said, getting to his feet. "I'll see you later."

"Bye," I said, sipping my cup of coffee.

Jake and I sat in silence for several minutes before he realized Lance had gone.

"Your friend is very cute," he pointed out after apologizing for zoning out.

"I agree," I said, smirking. "I have a lot of cute friends it seems," I continued, remembering Angela's comments about the guys who helped me move.

"That's the best way to live," he commented, pulling a pen out of his weird organizational zipped binder thing. I watched, grinning, as he signed the contract and slid it across the table to me.

"I'll take that as an acceptance," I said, tucking it into the folder that just barely fit into my purse.

"It's definitely an acceptance," he said, smiling. "We will need to go over all your currently scheduled appointments so that in the future I'll know when to schedule new ones. I prefer to use a PDA for that."

"We will get one today," I said. "And I'll give you contact information for my lawyer and accountant in case you ever need those. I'll let them know you have my permission to access their records. Lets start by going to the bank. You said you have something to do at five?"

"Just a meeting with my advisor at school," he said, getting to his feet. "She's trying to convince me to sign up for classes next year even though I've told her I want to take some time off."

"Well I have a meeting with a contractor at four," I said, glancing at my watch. "That gives us about two hours to go to the bank and the house. Sound okay?"

"Sure," he said, tucking this hands into his pockets in a move very similar to Lance's usual stance.

We took a cab to the bank, which took a lot longer than I had hoped it would due to the relative unhelpfulness of the woman we spoke to. After an hour, we left the bank having set up a business checking account and ordering new cards linked to it. From the bank, we took a cab to the house. I grinned when the cabbie dropped us off at the gate with a suspicious look. Neither of us were dressed fancily enough to look like we belonged anywhere near this place. I punched in the code for the gate, resolving to write it down for Jake later, and we made our way up the drive, which wasn't very long, considering.

"You lived here?" Jake asked, his voice carefully even. I glanced at him with a shrug.

"Until I was fifteen or so. After that I live in dorms during the winter and only came back here for the summer," I said.

"So it was just you and your parents in this giant mansion? That must have been…"

"It was a bit empty but we had staff sometimes that lived here too," I said when he trailed off. We didn't go inside the house, instead walking around it to the long, detached garage, connected to the house only by a short covered walkway. "I think the Prius is in here. It's the most practical car we have, I think. My dad was really into collectors cars, so most of them are old, fancy things." I flipped the lights on after opening the door with another code, and looked around.

"I don't really know much about cars but these look really nice," Jake said, following me past the row of old cars.

"I don't know anything about them either," I said, smiling. "I'll need to find someone who does know something about them to get rid of them at some point."

"I can do that for you," Jake said, stopping to pull out his phone to make a note.

"Perfect," I said, grinning at that. "While we are at it, I have an appointment on Friday at 8am with the Child Service's Office, and one on Monday at 1:30pm with who will hopefully be my new lawyer. If the contractor I'm meeting tonight is reasonable, I'll be making another appointment with him for some point next week to begin construction."

"Anything else I should make a note of right now?" He asked, typing with his thumbs as he spoke. I thought for a moment.

"My accountant," I began. "I should make an appointment with her for sometime soon. She does a monthly overview of my accounts and sends me a quarterly report, but since I'm actually using the business accounts now I should probably talk to her."

"I will call her and arrange an appointment, then I'll let you know," he said, and I sighed.

"It's kind of nice to have someone to do things for me," I said, then chuckled. "Once you get your card from the bank make sure you save all the receipts. You can use it for pretty much anything pertaining to business, gas, car repairs, fees. You will have to take this in to get it looked at," I said, patting the Prius parked at the end of the line of old cars. "It hasn't been used for a year, there might be something wrong with it."

"Okay," he said, putting his phone back into is pocket.

"The keys are on the rack by the door, probably the ones on the end," I said, pointing back to the door. He walked back to get them and returned quickly.

"Do you want me to drive?" He asked, not really sure what to do now. I shrugged.

"If it'll run," I said. "Tomorrow is Thursday so I don't have much of anything planned. I need to work a little on my plans for the meeting Friday but I have almost everything I need for that. I'll get you a PDA tonight sometime. You can come over to my apartment tomorrow afternoon and we can figure out where to go from there I guess."

"You haven't told me much about this project you are working on," he commented, climbing into the car. I went to open the garage door, then watched as he pulled the car out. It seemed to be working fine. I shut the door then climbed in the car.

"I want to convert this place into an orphanage, or a foster home, or whatever they are called these days," I said. "It's a giant house that I don't want to live in, but I don't want to get rid of it either."

"Any particular reason to turn it into an orphanage?" he asked, pulling back down the drive. The gate shut automatically as we pulled out onto the road.

"Seems like a good cause," I said. "I've heard that the foster system can be harsh. I want to try to make it a little better. I'm also going to do a little remodeling on my restaurant, though I'm not too sure what I want to do yet. My father owned a lot of different small businesses in the area and a couple bigger ones around the country. I haven't had anything to do with them for more than a year and I want to make sure that everything they are doing is… morally sound."

"I see," he said, frowning as he drove. "Do you have a list of all the businesses you own? I could start looking into them."

"Sure," I said, making a mental note to send a list to him. "I might hire a private investigator to do that though, there are a lot of them and if the Child Services board approves my idea I want to focus on that more. I need to do background checks on all my current residents too. One of them was just arrested for drug possession and murder last week. I don't want anything like that to happen again."

"You definitely need a private investigator for that," he said. "And actually, I think I know of one but he just graduated and got his license a few weeks ago."

"If you think he is capable, give him a call and set up an appointment," I said. "The worst thing that can happen is one of us will not want to work with the other."

"Okay," he said. "I'll text you about that too. You said you had a list of people that should be forwarded to you if they call?"

"Yeah," I said, recalling the mental list I had made earlier. "Oh, turn left here," I said, seeing where we were. "Drop me off at Bee's Contracting Office, it's about four miles down this road, then you can head home." I pulled a piece of blank paper out of my purse and a pen, then began to write my very short list of names. It included Kathy, from the restaurant, Lance and Angela, and a friend of my mothers who called every couple months to check up on me named Carol.

"Here?" Jake asked, pulling to a stop in front of the place I needed to be.

"Yes, thanks," I said, handing him the list. "I don't know Angela's last name, but she's from the Jeffersonian. I don't think she would call, but she might. I need to talk to my insurance people," I added, climbing out of the car. "I'll need to add your name to the list. I don't think I'll need an appointment though. Maybe we can do that tomorrow."

"Okay," he said. "What time should I be back?"

"Hm, around eleven I think," I said. That would give me plenty of time to finish my notes and things for the meeting Friday. "If you go in through the restaurant my manager, Kathy, can let you into the apartment building. I'll tell her to expect you. Parking is around back."

"Okay, see you tomorrow then," he said.

"Bye," I said, smiling.

The meeting with the contractor was pretty short, seeing as I didn't have any concrete plans, but rather, just an idea. He gave a me a range of what it would cost, which was lower than I had expected. He said this was because most houses built in the era mine was from were structurally sound still, especially ones that had been kept up, as ours had been. I made another appointment for next week Wednesday that I could cancel if my plans weren't approved on Friday, then texted Jake the time of the appointment to add to his list.

I walked home as it was just over a mile, and made sure to stop at an electronics store to pick up a PDA. I didn't really know much about them, but the clerk assured me that it was a good model. If Jake thought it wasn't, I could return it the next day anyway.

It was nearly six by the time I got home. I made my way upstairs, stopping briefly in the diner to leave a note for Kathy about tomorrow.

I was assaulted by the smell of spices as I walked into the apartment. I had almost forgotten that Lance had said he would make spaghetti for dinner.

"That smells really good," I said, dropping my purse on the couch as I walked into the kitchen. He jumped, not having heard me enter, and I laughed. "Now you know how unpleasant it is to be surprised."

"I don't sneak up on people on purpose," he said frowning.

"Neither do I," I said, smiling. "It's not my fault if you are unobservant today."

"I'm not unobservant," he protested, frowning. I grinned.

"You didn't hear me loudly shutting the door," I said.

"I was reading," he argued, gesturing to the book he had dropped on the counter when I had surprised him. I snatched the book, flipping it over to read the cover.

"Sherlock Holmes," I read in a grave, overly dramatic voice. "The Valley of Fear." I flipped the book over, stepping out of the way of his grabbing hand. "The great detective, Sherlock Holmes, is called to solve a mysterious murder in a small U.S. town called Vermissa Valley, but soon he discovers that this murder is only the tip of the iceberg." I held the book over my head as Lance tried to grab it again, and chuckled, then cleared my throat to continue in my overly mysterious voice. "The great detective begins to receive coded messages from a man known only as-" I cut off as the book was yanked from my grip, then frowned. "Hey, I was reading that."

"No, you were mocking it," he said, tucking the book under his arm. "It's a good book."

"I know, I've read it," I said, laughing. "Don't you get tired of reading about murder mysteries when you work murder mysteries all day?"

"These are better than work," he said, setting the book down again as he went to check on something in the kitchen. I followed him, reaching into the cupboards to grab some plates.

"So what did you do today?" I asked, setting the table. I shrugged out of my jacket and untucked my shirt as I spoke, relaxing into the comfortable atmosphere.

"Nothing really," he said. "I had a few appointments, but there wasn't much for me to do on this case we are working until Booth can track down the drug dealer."

"Well I hope he doesn't live in one of my buildings," I mumbled.

"I also looked at the background check the FBI put together on you when you were a murder suspect," he said, opening the oven and pulling out a tray of garlic bread. I raised an eyebrow at him. "You are running one on me so I figured it was fair."

"I suppose," I said. "What did they find on me?"

"Nothing I didn't already know," he said, smiling impishly. "Except that you own a _lot_ of small businesses."

"Yeah," I said, shrugging. I sat down at the tiny dining table as I spoke, waiting for him to bring out the rest of the food for dinner. "The restaurant and some real estate are the only things I actually have a hand in though. Everything else is run by one of my dad's hired people."

"That's probably why Booth was short with you," he said, sitting across from me.

"Because someone else runs my businesses?" I asked, frowning. I nibbled on a piece of garlic bread, it was very good.

"No, because you own a lot of businesses," he said. "Booth has this disdain for wealthy people. He thinks they are all entitled and don't think that the rules apply to them. I think that's one of the reasons he decided you were the murderer so quickly even though you didn't fit my profile."

"It's understandable," I said, twirling a few noodles around my fork. "In his line of work he has probably encountered a lot of wealthy people who hoped to buy their way out of trouble. I don't know much about Booth, but he seems very focused on his job. I definitely don't think he is the type of person to take bribes, he probably gets offended by them."

"That is spot on," he said, nodding. We ate in silence for a moment.

"Well hopefully I won't be seeing Booth again so it's alright if he doesn't like me," I said, shrugging. "This is really good. Where did you learn to cook?"

"My mom taught me a couple things," he said, smiling.

"Well she did a good job then," I said, finishing off the spaghetti on my plate. I waited until he was done, then gathered both plates and took them to the sink.

"You are mothering me," he commented, bringing the leftovers to the kitchen too. "I thought one of your rules was to wash my own dishes."

"I like taking care of people," I said, laughing. "That's why I like waitressing so much I think." He shook his head, but he was smiling so I didn't argue.

After washing the dishes, I sat back at the table and pulled out some of the things I would need tomorrow.

"What have you been working on so hard the last few days?" He asked, coming closer to the table to peer over my shoulder at the papers. I shuffled them away, frowning back at him.

"I'll tell you on Friday if it gets approved," I said, then grinned at as his expression grew even more curious. "Something you said the other day gave me a good idea of what to do with my parents house. That's the only hint you are getting."

"Fine," he said with a sigh, giving up quickly. I eyed him for a moment, then turned back to my papers. He snatched them from my hands, repeating my motions from earlier in the day. I let him take them since I was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to put together what they meant. I guessed I was right when he put them back in front of me after a moment with a scowl.

"Don't look so disappointed," I said, laughing. "It'll be a great surprise."

"I don't like surprises," he said, pouting a little.

"Well then I will wait until Friday to not surprise you," I said, grinning as I sorted through the pages, separating them into what I would need the next day. "It's not even really a surprise, it's just fun to keep things from you."

"That is totally not fair," he said, huffing as he went to sit on the couch. I chuckled.

"You can turn on the TV if you want, it won't bother me," I said after a moment of silence. He clicked not he TV and scanned through the channels, settling on some old show I'd never seen. I tuned out the noise as I pulled out my hand drawn blueprints and went over them again, spreading them across the table.

Within a half hour, I was yawning at least twice a minute. Finally, I decided that I needed to go to bed, even if I would just be up again in a few hours.

"Goodnight," I said to Lance, making sure to carefully hide the important project papers from him. He lifted a hand, but was focused on whatever was playing on TV, so I went into my room.

* * *

"Kate," the voice was muffled by something, and I looked around toward it, not recognizing the tone. I couldn't see anything in front of me though, everything was hidden by a thick, black fog. I struggled to move my arms in front of me to clear it, but I stumbled. The black fog had wrapped around my feet, holding me in place. I started to panic, trying to pull myself free.

"Kate," the voice called again. I recognized it that time.

"Lance?" I asked, peering around me. My vision was blurred by tears, and my voice came out in a scared whisper as I tried to pull my feet out of whatever held them.

"Kate, calm down," he said, his voice sounding much closer. "It's just a dream."

"A dream," I repeated in a whisper. I stopped trying to struggle free and blinked against the fog. After a second, my mind processed what I had said and I blinked my eyes open, taking in a deep breath. I recognized my bedroom, though the place was completely black with lack of light.

"Wake up, Kate," Lance said. He was standing beside my bed, bending over to shake my shoulders. My hands reached up to stop the shaking as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

"I'm awake," I said, coughing to clear my throat. "Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."

"I was still awake," he said, sitting on the edge of my bed. "You've only been asleep about an hour."

"I guess that's long enough," I said, my voice tired. I sat up, pushing my blankets off my legs.

"That is not long enough," Lance said, shaking his head. "You need sleep. Do you want me to stay?"

"No, you don't need to do that," I said, not wanting to inconvenience him. Part of me wanted to pull him down onto the bed and just curl up into him for comfort. The lack of sleep was definitely making me think less rationally.

"Then you should take a Valium," he said. My eyes widened at the thought and I shook my head. "I didn't think so. Move over."

"Why?" I asked, but I scooted across the bed, pulling the blanket with me.

"It's more restful for both of us if I'm here," he said, laying down on the space I had just vacated. "You will sleep better and I won't be woken up in a couple hours to shouting."

"I'm sorry," I said, flopping back onto my pillow with a sigh. I rubbed a hand over my face, belatedly realizing that I had forgotten to take my makeup off the night before.

"Today was the anniversary of your parents death," he said, and I sighed. "It stands to reason that you wouldn't sleep well."

"I visited them this morning," I said softly. "I brought lilies. They were my moms favorite. I miss them." I trailed off, ashamed to feel my eyes filling up with tears. I swiped at them angrily and turned onto my side away from him so he wouldn't see me crying.

"Come here," he said softly. I rolled over to face him. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in. I stayed curled into a ball, my arms folded between my chest and his. My face was pressed into his shoulder, which I only just then realized was not covered with clothing. I took a couple deep breaths to calm myself down and was overwhelmed with the almost woodsy smell of him. It calmed me down a lot more than deep breaths did.

"I'm sorry this keeps happening," I said, half to get my mind off of his warm skin and great scent, and half because I felt the need to apologize. "I know its not rational to be sad when something good comes to an end because it will inevitably do so at some point."

"Rationalization is the opposite of feelings," he said into my hair. His hand ran soothingly across my shoulder blade. I lifted my head at that.

"You make a living by rationalizing feelings," I pointed out. He chuckled softly and shook his head but didn't comment again. I unfolded my arms and wrapped them around his neck in a sort of hug. He stiffened at the movement and for a moment I thought it was the physical proximity, but then my hands brushed across his shoulders and come in contact with a row of what felt like raised scars. It took me a moment to realize what they must mean, and by that point his hands had come up to grab my arms, pushing them back towards me gently.

I twisted them free and wrapped my arms around his waist instead, pulling myself against him again. I felt his hesitation, but after a few seconds, he relaxed again and let his arms fall back into place around me. We were both quiet for a moment, but then I slowly started moving my hands up his back, wanting to see if there were any more scars there.

"They are only on my shoulders," he said in a whisper and my hands froze. I wished he wasn't so good at guessing what I was doing, but then maybe I hadn't been as subtle as I could have been since I was half asleep.

"What…" I whispered, but trailed off, not sure how to ask what had happened.

"One of the foster homes I was in…" he said, and my blood ran cold. I had been thinking something along the lines of an accident or, at the worst, maybe he was beat up in school. But to think an adult did that, to a child. Someone who was supposed to protect him had hurt him instead. My arms tightened around him, my face pressing further into his shoulder as my eyes overflowed again. He let me cry in silence for a moment, then he sighed and pushed me away from him so that he could look down at me. "Are you okay?"

"Are you okay?" I echoed back at him, wiping my eyes on the pillow case. We were still close enough that I could feel him sigh.

"It was a really long time ago," he said. "I'm just fine now. Don't cry for me." I chuckled at that line, and he frowned, confused.

"There's this movie called Evita," I tried to explain, but my eyes overflowed once again and I gave up. "Never mind."

"You are a bizarre person," he said, though his voice was caring rather than confused this time. I smiled, then frowned at him.

"I'm sorry," I said for what felt like the hundredth time that night. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, and I wasn't crying for you exactly, it's just… a horrible thing when someone who is supposed to be taking care of you hurts you instead. It's not… right."

"I'd rather not talk about it right now," he said. "Can we just go to sleep?"

"Yeah," I said, rolling back to my side of the bed. I tried to go to sleep again, but my mind wouldn't let the thought of the scars alone. I shifted onto my side so I was facing him again with the space still between us.

"You aren't going to go to sleep are you?" He asked, and I flinched. I had thought he was asleep.

"Sorry," I said, rolling onto my back again.

"It's alright," he said. "I would be curious in your place too."

"I'm not curious," I said softly. "I just don't want you to feel awkward about it later because it's a touchy subject and we have only been friends a couple weeks. I don't want you to avoid me because you think I might bring it up or something."

"Sometimes I forget you studied people," he said, then sighed. In the very dim light I could see that he had an arm folded under his head and his eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. "When I was four I went into the foster system. I stayed with a lot of different foster families. I was labeled as a difficult child because I didn't want to talk to anyone. One of the families I stayed with when I was six thought they could 'fix' me with some discipline. The woman was all for time outs and grounding when I refused to talk, but her husband was more impatient. When I wouldn't talk to him, he hit me with whatever was close at hand. One day it was an electrical cord. It left scars."

"Lance," I said, keeping my voice from cracking, just barely.

"Don't say you're sorry," he said quickly, his voice still monotone. "It wasn't your fault."

"I wasn't going to say sorry," I said, my voice soft. "You having a troubled childhood is probably what led you to go into the field of Psychology. Becoming a psychologist led you to the FBI which led you to my restaurant one day and I am really glad that happened. I don't know if you've realized this but I'm really really happy that you are here." I trailed off at that, not wanting to say anything I would regret later. To my surprise, he chuckled.

"That is a new response," he explained with a sigh. "Usually there is crying and pity sex. But then, usually I'm only shirtless around people I'm sleeping with."

"Well I've been crying all evening so I'm out of tears," I said, smiling up at the ceiling. "And I'm probably tired enough to be bribed into pity sex if you offer me chocolate of some kind."

"I don't happen to have any on me," he said, and I could hear his smile. We were silent for a few moments, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep.

"Thanks for telling me," I said quietly. "You didn't have to."

"I'm sure something like it would have come up in whatever background check you are running on me," he said, rolling over on his side to face me. I turned to face him too, an eyebrow raised.

"I'm not running a check on you," I said, chuckling. "I told you I wasn't going to."

"Did you?" He asked, blinking at me. I nodded. "Oh." We were both silent again for a while. I listened as his breathing deepened.

"I'm sorry that you've had a difficult life," I said quietly, in case he was asleep. I couldn't tell if his eyes were open or not in the light, but he scooted closer to me and threw an arm over me, letting me know he was still awake. I snuggled in against him, keeping my hands to myself this time.

"Thanks," he whispered into my hair. I sighed and my eyes drifted shut. I kicked my feet so that I could reach the blanket and dragged it up over both of us, content to relax into him now. It wasn't long until I drifted off to sleep again.


End file.
